PC Do you hate crafting?

[Jihh]

You couldn’t craft t6 tools and weapons from the moment A18 came out. Where was this outrage the last two weeks? We got it back for 4 days and NOW we can’t live without it?

Despite reading the forum for almost two years (not very active, but I take a look once in a while) I opened my first thread ever with exactly that topic. I also saw at least one other thread with that topic. I wasn't in rage then and I'm not now, but that clearly shows that this topic didn't arise now, but was existent before we could craft q6 items. I wonder how you get the impression that nobody cared before.

In my thread I wrote that I'm pretty confident that TFP won't implement the whole weapon part stuff and distribute weapons among all skill trees, so overhauling the whole gear crafting system, just to make it useless at the same time. That wouldn't make sense at all and is a waste of development resources. So with the believe that gear crafting will be useful at some point there was absolutely no reason to be outraged in any degree, but I still found that topic important enough to share my experience as feedback and opened my first thread about it. If that doesn't show that the topic is important for me, what does?

They took away crafting the highest tier but they gave us random stats instead of static midrange and they are making the higher tier items more rare. More low tier items means plenty of parts for crafting and more reason to craft since you may not find the top tier items.

Even with q6 items being more rare, we are talking about two slots out of ten (if we consider everyone using just one ranged and one melee weapon and only pickaxes, axes and shovels as tools, so not counting augers, chainsaws, wrenches, alternative weapons, ...) you perk into in early to mid game. At the time you possibly could craft items for all slots you probably will already have found q6 items, or ideal q5 items for almost every slot. With that in mind you can either perk into two slots and hope you won't find better items than you can craft, or go for lucky looter and have better gear on every single slot, maybe even the two you would perk into otherwise.

Imho it's shortsighted to just compare looted items with crafted items without taking into account the skill trees. Because even if crafting would guarantee me better items on those two slots (what I don't even want), I'd still have to loot a lot of parts and still will loot better items for the other slots up until late mid to end game, so looting still would be the most important action for gearing up.

In my opinion, if looted items will remain better than crafted items, there is no place for lucky looter in this game. It throws any potential balance of. The only way I see to balance it, would be ramping up the damage part of the crafting perks a lot, but that would take away the freedom to use a weapon that isn't part of your choosen skill tree without shooting yourself in the leg.

In A17, you could craft everything and be self sufficient in/around your base. Or you could leave. Now. You must leave.

There are two ways of motivation to leave your base. You must leave your base, or you want to leave your base.

I started late with this game, it was already A15 and of course I was exploring the ♥♥♥♥ out this game the first hundreds of hours. Afterwards there was just no reason to leave your base anymore. I neither had to, nor wanted to (at least not as often as I think it should be). I left the immediate surroundings of my base 1-3 times a week after I got a wrench and a couple of engines on the first three days. In A16 I didn't even start to explore as much, since there was no new motivation.

In A17 on the other hand we had more vehicles, we had dungeon POIs, we had quests, the world looked nicer and so on. I almost always was out in the world, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. In my last A17 game I started decorating my base at level ~240, because until then I was out having fun. Being able to craft better gear than I found, didn't stop my motivation at all. In A18 it's the same. I'm not leaving my base because I have to, but because I want to. Loot being more important than before is a nice bonus, but there is no necessity for it making crafting gear useless.

So I'm with RipClaw on:

They are supported in this decision by the players who seem to never leave their base unless they get a reason to do so.In A17 you could craft everything yourself, but most of the time I wasn't in my base. I even went looting more often than in the alphas before because I did many of the quests. So if the quests, over 300 books and parts you can't make yourself are not enough reasons to leave the base then I don't know what is enough.

Funny thing is that those players who seem to need an obligation to ever leave the base presumed in my thread that we wouldn't leave our "cozy cave" if we could craft useful items (hence why it seems like they need an obligation), despite me having been outside my base all day (and night) in A17.

You can still craft tiers 1-5

What's the point in doing that, if I already find better gear than I can craft? To craft a q3 weapon I first have to find 3 weapons I can scrap, so I already have 3 chances to find a better one. For each additional try I have to find 2 more weapons which have the chance to be better. I have to be really unlucky to have a reason to craft any weapon or tool. Either that or TFP will nerf looting quality chances to the ground. But that would affect all slots, not just the two I perked into. So in order to make crafting q1-5 useful they'll have to nerf all gear.

I'd rather see them balancing looting quality on the progression rate they consider right with crafting being competitive on those two slots, than them balancing looting quality so it makes crafting competitive in early and mid game. Also how do you balance that? Even if two people chose the same skill tree they still could progress in their crafting perks at a very different speed.

I wonder if that does happen whether people will be outraged over not being able to craft t7 even though getting back t6 will have been the highest anyone has ever been able to craft since the game was founded.
Is the very existence of items that cannot be crafted in a game that calls itself a crafting game the thing that rankles?

It's not about being unable to craft some particular items, it's about crafting gear being useful or not. I get that in A17 crafting being competitive was a problem. There was no limit on how many items you can craft without exploring the world (and thus taking risks) and you could easily progress to a point where you were able to craft high quality gear on every slot in early game. But that changed with A18. We now have to loot, no matter if we craft gear or just use the gear we loot. We also are limited in the amount of gear we can craft. And we now won't be able to craft high quality gear on every slot up until late end game (so at a point where we already had countless chances on finding better gear).

It doesn't make sense to balance crafting in A18 on the state the game was in A17. If we do, what's the point of all the changes that came with A18?

It is also about the feel of contribution to my progress. When I after farming materials for hours, some by mining, some by salvaging, some by looting, and so on, craft a shiny weapon of the type I specialized myself in and then go out to kill tons of zombies, I feel like I contributed to what I'm capable of. It makes me happy and lets me enjoy the game even more. On the other hand, if the capability of my character is solely bound to the luck I had while looting, it doesn't feel like I contributed to it as much. Either I'm lucky or I'm not. Being able to craft low quality (in proportion to the level I'm in) weapons is a safety vault at best. But we already have weapons we didn't specialize in as safety vaults that enable us to do stuff, but not as efficient.

if u can craft everything and its even equal/better than loot what the point of leaving the base? (this was the main problem in a17)

But we can't no matter if q6 crafting is possible or not. The situation has changed a lot since A17. There is no crafting gear (aside from stone/primitive) without looting in A18. Also the world got more interesting (already with A17, but even more in A18), so I don't need an obligation to leave my base, I already want to leave my base as much as possible. Back in A15 and A16 I made huge bases with lots of decorated rooms. In A16 I even build a subway line with multiple stations, due to the boring outside. In A17 on the other hand I always took over a T1 to T2 poi, replaced some broken blocks and painted walls, floor and ceiling. I had no time for big decorating or building projects, because there was interesting stuff to do outside.

And there are enough other reasons to leave the base. The Q6 items are just the icing on the cake.

This!

 

[Kattla]

What's the point in doing that, if I already find better gear than I can craft? To craft a q3 weapon I first have to find 3 weapons I can scrap, so I already have 3 chances to find a better one. For each additional try I have to find 2 more weapons which have the chance to be better. I have to be really unlucky to have a reason to craft any weapon or tool. Either that or TFP will nerf looting quality chances to the ground. But that would affect all slots, not just the two I perked into. So in order to make crafting q1-5 useful they'll have to nerf all gear.

And nerfing (early game) loot quality is next on their try out list i think. Not sure if they also going to nerf lucky looter, since it is a perk and therefore a choice, but i would not be too surprised if they do both.

 

[Ananais]

The change may not be in yet but Madmole has said that he plans to do a pass on the loot tables to ensure that lower tier finds are more common and t6 items are extremely rare finds. He also said he will nerf the traders to not sell t6 items so commonly.
Tier 2-5 items sell for more than the parts and they now have random stats. Since it is possibly therefore to craft a blue steel pickaxe that is better than the purple steel pickaxe you found there is still good incentives to save parts and craft t5 items even if you already have a t6 version. And if you get unlucky you can sell it for a profit.

What killed crafting was that the item would always be mid-range on stats and the parts were so specialized. Those two restrictive features have been lifted. The way the devs were talking yesterday it seems as though they plan for legendary items to be a t7 level which would then open t6 to crafting and the legendary level would loot only.

I wonder if that does happen whether people will be outraged over not being able to craft t7 even though getting back t6 will have been the highest anyone has ever been able to craft since the game was founded.

Is the very existence of items that cannot be crafted in a game that calls itself a crafting game the thing that rankles?

I dont believe the issue is just that something cannot be crafted, but that its perceived as a nerf to crafting as they have been craftable previously.

I liked they were added back in, but this explanation makes sense to me now as to what the intention was, I think it would have been much easier for people to swallow if a T7 / legendary was added which had never been craftable in the past though.

It may even be worth renaming T6 to legendary now to differentiate them from the normal craftable items.

 

[Whitaker]

It would really be nice if they would at least give us the option in the game options to put a max crafting level in ourselves. Having to mod the game to play it the way I've played it for the last several years is annoying. The level of RNG is too over the top, unless they want me to play with the loot % through the roof to get the items I want. We are on day 15 on my server with three hour days, and four to six people on together, almost all of us looting non stop to get basic ♥♥♥♥. We still haven't found steel tools at the traders or looting anywhere.

 

[guardianangelmp]

The change may not be in yet but Madmole has said that he plans to do a pass on the loot tables to ensure that lower tier finds are more common and t6 items are extremely rare finds. He also said he will nerf the traders to not sell t6 items so commonly.
Tier 2-5 items sell for more than the parts and they now have random stats. Since it is possibly therefore to craft a blue steel pickaxe that is better than the purple steel pickaxe you found there is still good incentives to save parts and craft t5 items even if you already have a t6 version. And if you get unlucky you can sell it for a profit.

What killed crafting was that the item would always be mid-range on stats and the parts were so specialized. Those two restrictive features have been lifted. The way the devs were talking yesterday it seems as though they plan for legendary items to be a t7 level which would then open t6 to crafting and the legendary level would loot only.

I wonder if that does happen whether people will be outraged over not being able to craft t7 even though getting back t6 will have been the highest anyone has ever been able to craft since the game was founded.

Is the very existence of items that cannot be crafted in a game that calls itself a crafting game the thing that rankles?

The problem is that no matter what looting is always better than crafting, thus there is no incentive to craft, so why the hell even have crafting in the game.

They had fixed the "never leave the base" when they made crafting require parts that could only be obtained through looting, so it boggles my mind why they wouldn't allow you to craft t6 items.

If they are afraid that you'll be able to craft t6 too quick then balance the parts required or make the ability to craft t6 need max weapon and stat perks and/or require so many parts of that item to be used in crafting before unlocking t6.

There are so many ways to be creative on how it could work, but they have shown they like the easy way.

If/when they do implement a t7 tier it may cause the same backlash if it's just thrown in (ie random drop from any trash pile or box), though I don't think there would be a backlash if they went the way of unique items in MMOs (make the item drop in only specific places/conditions and give each item a name, not just "t7 m60".....like boss drops in MMOs).

And yes, this opinion of looting is King and crafting is nigh useless has been around since a18 dropped. If you haven't noticed it it's because you are staying in an insular environment.

 

[Psychodabble]

The change may not be in yet but Madmole has said that he plans to do a pass on the loot tables to ensure that lower tier finds are more common and t6 items are extremely rare finds. He also said he will nerf the traders to not sell t6 items so commonly.
Tier 2-5 items sell for more than the parts and they now have random stats. Since it is possibly therefore to craft a blue steel pickaxe that is better than the purple steel pickaxe you found there is still good incentives to save parts and craft t5 items even if you already have a t6 version. And if you get unlucky you can sell it for a profit.

What killed crafting was that the item would always be mid-range on stats and the parts were so specialized. Those two restrictive features have been lifted. The way the devs were talking yesterday it seems as though they plan for legendary items to be a t7 level which would then open t6 to crafting and the legendary level would loot only.

I wonder if that does happen whether people will be outraged over not being able to craft t7 even though getting back t6 will have been the highest anyone has ever been able to craft since the game was founded.

Is the very existence of items that cannot be crafted in a game that calls itself a crafting game the thing that rankles?

TFPs need a Community Manager. The information that you are sharing with us makes this entire process seem perfectly reasonable, but without it he changes seem arbitrary and senseless. If this thought process had been shared up front, you wouldn't see the uproar you're seeing right now. Not like a bunch of forum dwellers getting their jimmies rustled is a really big deal, but it could have all been easily avoided by telling people what they're thinking.

 

[Jihh]

We are on day 15 on my server with three hour days, and four to six people on together, almost all of us looting non stop to get basic ♥♥♥♥. We still haven't found steel tools at the traders or looting anywhere.

As far as I remember I already had my first steel tools on day 15 in a solo game without lucky looter. But steel tools are endgame items anyway. Why would you judge the looting system by your ability to have end game items in early game? Progress overall is slowed down in A18, we finally won't reach end game in the first week anymore.

 

[Onarr]

All in all I must agree with fun pimps removing the ability to craft Q6 weapons. And nerfing drops of higher quality items is good too IMO. It will slow the progression which imho is good, because in my last playthrough I found Q6 pistol on day 10 an have been using it ever since. No upgrades in sight.

 

[Jihh]

I don't think there would be a backlash if they went the way of unique items in MMOs (make the item drop in only specific places/conditions and give each item a name, not just "t7 m60".....like boss drops in MMOs).

I don't think that would be the right approach for that game, but I do agree that this would change a lot in how I see it. If that kind of legendary were only achievable by doing (endgame worthy) challenges than I actually would have a contribution in getting them. That's a complete different thing than being lucky when opening a random container.

 

[HungryZombie]

Even if they were to add legendary, it doesn't fix the problem of crafting being fairly pointless now. You can sure as heck bet they aren't making legendaries craftable if they even do something like that.
Crafting is now only worth anything super early game...beelining for level 3 in a skill to make decent quality items right away to get a job done....if you can avoid needing to do that, you can save those points and invest elsewhere....I don't really know WHERE, since that was a big draw of the game...but somewhere...

Depends on what you defines as crafting. You still craft food & meds, you craft ammo, you craft traps, you craft your base, you craft vehicles. Pretty much they took away top crafting of tools, weapons and armor. Still stuff to craft though. It's more like they made crafting a support role rather than a main one.

- - - Updated - - -

You couldn’t craft t6 tools and weapons from the moment A18 came out. Where was this outrage the last two weeks? We got it back for 4 days and NOW we can’t live without it?

The outrage is probably cause the people might feel they got trolled. They got T6 crafting then it got taken away. TFP's poked the bear on this one.

 

[HungryZombie]

What's the point in doing that, if I already find better gear than I can craft?

Random stats.

 

[AshaMarie]

I never been do depressed before in my life. I enjoy crafting so much on top of building up a pretty base. My investment in crafting made it worth the effort, but now you can no longer make the top tier stuff... why should I keep playing now?

PLEASE re-add max tier crafting. I beg you...

 

[Prodigy]

I'm pretty sure you can be self sufficient in/around your base with blue level gear... There really isn't one ounce of "must" related to the aquiring of purple. It is great when you get it but self-sufficiency is attained by blue--possibly even green-- but blue for sure. So stay at home is still a choice if it means that much to you.

Sorry, I could (and should) have been a bit clearer. I was commenting more on the overall reliance on looting, than just QL6 items.

And, as someone who's played the stay-at-home approach, no, it really isn't a choice. When you're not actively looting and questing as much as earthly possible... it takes an ungodly amount of time to accomplish much of anything. Take farming for example: I play 30 minute days usually... I was on Day 15 before I could so much as cook stew & craft seeds. 7 and a half hours of grinding, just for that one, fairly basic staple.

Fairly similar experience trying to play a Chemical Engineer.

This all part and parcel of experimental. It isn't personal. Nobody is trying jerk the rug out from under anyone. It is just the way re-balancing goes. They knew shortly after A18 dropped that they had gone too far oo the looting side of things and unintentionally devalued crafting-- much like A17 devalued exploration and looting. So they made a pendulum swing change but realized they went too far by opening up the purples to crafting. I can tell you that the reason for the update after only 4 days was precisely because they didn't want people getting too married to purple crafting. Their vision for the game is that the top tier is non-craftable. I think they are getting closer to a good balance where crafting and looting both feel important and an integral part of the game.

People who never opt in to experimental and who only start playing when it goes stable will never know about this back and forth on the balance. We are choosing to experience it and we have to remember that our desire for a stable play experience has to come second to what the devs need to do to get the game ready for the real public release of A18.

I totally agree both (A17 & A18) had flaws. And I'm sure balancing is something that's going to be occurring for quite some time, lol.

It just looked like you were questioning people's complaints. I.E. "It was okay then, now suddenly it's not - WTF?" This was just a much more sudden, unexpected, smack-in-the-face type change without any forewarning that it was coming.

Also agree that, when you click the drop down and opt in, you've explicitly agreed to deal with the headaches that come with it.

 

[Prodigy]

if u can craft everything and its even equal/better than loot what the point of leaving the base? (this was the main problem in a17, it was nonsense to risk your life looting since you could just craft whatever u want yourself). I do like crafting and there is plenty of things to craft in this game, i do think that max tier should not craftable tho, perhaps make it more difficult to loot also since there is no degradation

Thing is, when it wasn't required... you still had the option to require it. You could impose "Nope, I'm going to go scavenge and salvage everything I can from the wreckage around me." And John Q Immersed could hunker in his base and be self sufficient.

While your justification is fair (they want looting to feel important), the argument is really about how they took the play how you want meta of A17, and turned it into just play how we let you. You could always choose to not craft L6 items. You never had to play my way.

But now I can no longer choose to immerse myself in the "we only leave when we need to" style of play that I feel is more fitting. I now am forced to play your way.

Hopefully that made sense? lol

 

[Roland]

So in the dev diary Madmole just corrected my statement that legendary would probably be t7 and said that it might end up being t6 with special abilities. Just wanted to say that the decision hasn’t been made yet to add an additional tier and t6 may end up never being craftable if you’re playing vanilla.

@Jedo, I guess this issue didn’t hit my radar before this most recent flip flop like it has now.

 

[Roland]

I never been do depressed before in my life. I enjoy crafting so much on top of building up a pretty base. My investment in crafting made it worth the effort, but now you can no longer make the top tier stuff... why should I keep playing now?
PLEASE re-add max tier crafting. I beg you...

Sorry that the change has so affected your enjoyment of the game. I can tell you that they feel very strongly about this and are very unlikely to change their decision.

I’m sure you’ll be able to find a modlet that returns purple crafting before very long.

 

[warmer]

Maybe I'm reading to much into their thinking, but I just assumed having Tier 6 being an un-craftable made sense in regard to no one having access to industrial equipment. Tier 5 being as refined as you can go without having highly engineered/refined industrial tooling.

Although...

That would make for an interesting POI. Having a POI like a Shot Gun Messiah Industrial Plant which has the required tooling to craft Tier 6 weapons. Require the crafting be done at the Plants crafting table. It would give you a reason to take it over and defend it on an MP server.

 

[Limdood]

This is all part and parcel of experimental. It isn't personal. Nobody is trying jerk the rug out from under anyone. It is just the way re-balancing goes. They knew shortly after A18 dropped that they had gone too far to the looting side of things and unintentionally devalued crafting-- much like A17 devalued exploration and looting. So they made a pendulum swing change but realized they went too far by opening up the purples to crafting.

Wait...

realized they went too far by opening up the purples to crafting.

It'd be really REALLY nice if someone could tell us, officially, WHY?!?

Crafting T6 doesn't devalue looting.

Yes, getting level 10 in an attribute and 5 in a skill is consistent, compared to the RNG of finding the level 6 item in loot...

but you still need to find the schematic. Yes it's more common than actually finding a given level 6 item...

but you still need the parts.

What this does (and what it has done since A18 released....there was significant pushback against the lack of impressiveness of crafting since A18 dropped) is devalue specialization. If I really want to be a miner/ranger/sniper/machinegunner/sledge-tank/etc...just ONE goal for my character progression, and I put all my points, all my effort, all my time into doing that one thing super amazing, I end up with pretty nice weapons/tools. But the absolute pinnacle of the path I really want to take? that's out of my hands. For some reason, TFP wants that equipment capstone for any path to be randomly equally available to all...no matter their focus, goal, or expenditure of time/effort towards it.

So....why?

What was it about crafting that was "too good" that it devalued looting, in the dev's eyes? It couldn't be that people would just sit in their base and loot, because you needed huge amounts of items no available except by exploring. So....why?

 

[Kalen]

Personally, I'm disappointed in this change. I liked being able to craft high end gear.... after all, it actually takes more work and time investment to craft a T6 item than it does to loot one. Shouldn't that dedication to a craft be rewarded? You have to level an attribute to 10... level a skill to 5... loot enough items to scrap into the appropriate parts. All that is much more than just opening a crate and finding a T6 item.

Also, I'm not swimming in the parts I need like some people are. Sure, I find plenty of gun parts, but steel tool parts or steel armor parts I'm not finding so much. In my current play through, I'm on day 25 and have found enough to make 1 steel tool and 1 steel armor piece.

 

[Prodigy]

Maybe I'm reading to much into their thinking, but I just assumed having Tier 6 being an un-craftable made sense in regard to no one having access to industrial equipment. Tier 5 being as refined as you can go without having highly engineered/refined industrial tooling.
Although...

That would make for an interesting POI. Having a POI like a Shot Gun Messiah Industrial Plant which has the required tooling to craft Tier 6 weapons. Require the crafting be done at the Plants crafting table. It would give you a reason to take it over and defend it on an MP server.

I would agree with this, if they made a couple small changes.

--Make QL 1-5 craftable without Parts items. Revert them to only scrapping for resources (so you can't scrap them for parts).

Rename the parts to something like "Refined Steel Tool Parts" or something like that. Indicate that they're high quality.

QL6 still requires the uncraftable refined parts.

This would hide the QL6 behind a lootgate, but make the QL1-5 items craftable (without being behind a lootgate), making them easy enough that they're worthwhile to craft and use.

Then, whenever you get QL6 items, you can scrap them for refined parts, so that you can - over time - try to recraft ones that have better stats (though it would be a gamble).