After a decent amount of time playing a21, i have several thoughts and suggestions regarding the magazine system.
I personally overall like both the magazine system as is and the potential of what it could be to me with a bit of balancing.
Some magazines seem to come a bit too fast. some just right, and some either a bit or a lot too slow.
Maybe too fast: cooking and first aid
I think because they have exclusive containers that they spawn in plus also spawn everywhere that "any" magazine can be found, these are obtained much faster than anything else. This
not a problem for these skills, but because other skills are lagging behind a bit, it might be better to just remove these magazines from spawning at all in generic containers such as mailboxes. That would decrease the leveling of these skills just a bit, while increasing the leveling of other skills that are lagging.
Seems just right: armor, workstations, seeds
By the time i can craft iron armor, i have either just crafted a workbench or am just about to. At the same time, i am looting q5-6 t0 and possibly q1 iron armor. Everything seems in balance, excluding quest rewards. and seeds are common enough in loot that crafting them is not even really needed early game and the magazines are fairly common.
A bit too slow: all tools
The tools you loot seems to outpace what you can craft fairly early in the game. For me, by the time i can craft q2-3 stone, i am looting q5-6 stone, and the gap widens as you continue leveling. Another source of tool magazines would help.
Too slow: weapon magazines
I think because you have so many different weapon magazines competing for very few exclusive containers, my weapon crafting experience lags way behind what i loot. I find i am almost never crafting weapons.
Possible solutions:
I think the problem with the things that seem to level too slow is that they need more exclusive sources for those particular magazines. The solution i came up with is pretty simple. Create a weapon crafting magazine bundle and a tool crafting magazine bundle. Maybe give the weapon crafting bundle 3 each of 3 magazines and the tools one 2 each of 2.
Add these bundles to both the trader quest rewards and air drops. Give them equal weight to the generic crafting magazine bundle. See how that affects the speed of leveling up skills and adjust/change as needed.
That leaves quest rewards as the major outlier.
Any time that the trader would now offer a weapon, decrease the chances of a weapon appearing by 50% and substitute the weapon crafting magazine bundle for the other 50%. The same would work for tools.
That leaves armor as the only thing with a tier and quality that the trader offers as a quest reward that remains unchanged. You could do the same thing as with tools and weapons, by creating an armor crafting bundle with say 5 magazines and 3 steel or military armor parts.
I think it is fine and even desired to occasionally get a quest reward significantly better than what you can craft/loot, but maybe not 2 tiers higher or 5 quality levels higher, lol.
To me, these changes should help balance the rate at which you acquire the different magazine types while also helping to balance crafting, looting, and quest rewards.
If your experience with the rate of looting different magazines is much different than mine, please let me know what differences you are seeing. If you have any better ideas on how to balance, i would enjoy hearing those as well.
I personally overall like both the magazine system as is and the potential of what it could be to me with a bit of balancing.
Some magazines seem to come a bit too fast. some just right, and some either a bit or a lot too slow.
Maybe too fast: cooking and first aid
I think because they have exclusive containers that they spawn in plus also spawn everywhere that "any" magazine can be found, these are obtained much faster than anything else. This
not a problem for these skills, but because other skills are lagging behind a bit, it might be better to just remove these magazines from spawning at all in generic containers such as mailboxes. That would decrease the leveling of these skills just a bit, while increasing the leveling of other skills that are lagging.
Seems just right: armor, workstations, seeds
By the time i can craft iron armor, i have either just crafted a workbench or am just about to. At the same time, i am looting q5-6 t0 and possibly q1 iron armor. Everything seems in balance, excluding quest rewards. and seeds are common enough in loot that crafting them is not even really needed early game and the magazines are fairly common.
A bit too slow: all tools
The tools you loot seems to outpace what you can craft fairly early in the game. For me, by the time i can craft q2-3 stone, i am looting q5-6 stone, and the gap widens as you continue leveling. Another source of tool magazines would help.
Too slow: weapon magazines
I think because you have so many different weapon magazines competing for very few exclusive containers, my weapon crafting experience lags way behind what i loot. I find i am almost never crafting weapons.
Possible solutions:
I think the problem with the things that seem to level too slow is that they need more exclusive sources for those particular magazines. The solution i came up with is pretty simple. Create a weapon crafting magazine bundle and a tool crafting magazine bundle. Maybe give the weapon crafting bundle 3 each of 3 magazines and the tools one 2 each of 2.
Add these bundles to both the trader quest rewards and air drops. Give them equal weight to the generic crafting magazine bundle. See how that affects the speed of leveling up skills and adjust/change as needed.
That leaves quest rewards as the major outlier.
Any time that the trader would now offer a weapon, decrease the chances of a weapon appearing by 50% and substitute the weapon crafting magazine bundle for the other 50%. The same would work for tools.
That leaves armor as the only thing with a tier and quality that the trader offers as a quest reward that remains unchanged. You could do the same thing as with tools and weapons, by creating an armor crafting bundle with say 5 magazines and 3 steel or military armor parts.
I think it is fine and even desired to occasionally get a quest reward significantly better than what you can craft/loot, but maybe not 2 tiers higher or 5 quality levels higher, lol.
To me, these changes should help balance the rate at which you acquire the different magazine types while also helping to balance crafting, looting, and quest rewards.
If your experience with the rate of looting different magazines is much different than mine, please let me know what differences you are seeing. If you have any better ideas on how to balance, i would enjoy hearing those as well.
