PC How to make top tier item parts matter

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Limdood

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I found a level 5 steel sledgehammer in a tier 4 POI...

All of the steel sledgehammer parts I'd been trying to save up to eventually make one became instantly worthless...I'd NEVER need them again.

The way the game is at this point, even if I spec HARD into a given attribute, I'm STILL more likely to FIND a level 6 version of the weapon/armor/tool I've specced into LONG before I can craft a level 5 one. For finding one...I just have to find it...that's all...or save up and buy one from a trader. For crafting one, I need to hit level 10 in an attribute, level 5 in the governing skill, get access to steel (or military fiber), And after all that I STILL need to find the schematic AND find enough of the item to scrap it several times for enough parts. The RNG for actually crafting a level 5 version of an item is SIGNIFICANTLY harder/more restrictive than finding a level 6 version of that item in loot or a trader inventory...It's currently much harder to accomplish less...

I like looting high end items...it's fun...but getting them so quickly (day 11 I think) trivializes some aspects of crafting. I'd honestly love to see TWO top tier items of each type....one that was only craftable, and one that was only lootable.

Have them share parts, so that you can scrap the lootable stuff for materials for the craftable stuff....that would introduce a progression of:

Tier 1 (crafted primitive) -> Tier 2 (iron/leather, crafted or found) -> Tier 3 (advanced, looted only...military armor would be a great example) -> Tier 3.5 (very advanced, crafted ONLY, made from scrapped Tier 3 parts)

This keeps the benefit of looting - you still end up with very strong gear, and having tier 3 loot-only stuff lets TFP tell a bit of a story...maybe that tier 3 loot is the cutting edge of what the forces fighting off the zombies were using shortly before they were overwhelmed (hence military armor as an example, or modern military-grade weapons), AND it makes crafting important.

Crafting would then allow you to get just a little bit more out of an item....not a full tier stronger, but just enough, with just enough of a bonus somewhere in the stats to make people go "you know, It might actually be worth scrapping some of these [tier 3 item] to get that next step. It also somewhat solves the problem of sitting in a safe little region collecting levels and resources to craft top tier loot, a problem A17 had that appears to be one of the reasons the A18 item-parts were added, to force people to go out and fight and loot. Due to the already haphazard/mad max/post-apocalyptic look of a lot of the high end stuff already, It would make sense to flavor a lot of that new "Tier 3.5" stuff as modern+. Not futuristic, just modern gear with extra bells and whistles added on, like the way the iron and steel spear aren't just metal poles sharpened to a point.

I get that TFP want us out exploring and looting, and not just being an eclectic hermit watching crafting timers and digging in our mine, but if crafting makes it harder and take longer to get inferior gear to looting...why craft gear? Unless there was some gear we could access through crafting that wasn't available from traders or POIs.

 
With the new perk system, I really wish we could craft top level (L6) items after all that investment in the tree. I'm fine with being able to loot top end items *in addition to* crafting them. As you said, crafting is a heavy investment, and shouldn't be thrown away. I like the idea that I have to go out and farm lower level items of the same group and scrap them for parts in order to make a better version. I like the increasing number of parts for higher level items. What I don't like is looting being the only way to get top end gear. If I spec hard into Agility and max out Bows and Handguns, I should be able to craft a L6 T3 item (after finding the schematic, of course - I think that system is great). There should be some level of challenge to obtaining L6 gear, but crafting should be a viable path to that. You can't argue that crafting allows you to stay inside your base, because the only way to get parts is either via looting or trading.

 
Keep it as is but add a mod slot to crafted items. That way it is worth making but is still only middle of the range for stats.
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Which would still be inferior to looted items. While being harder to make, require more investment, and take longer.

Current max crafted: Level 5 items with 3 mod slots

Current max looted: Level 6 items with 4 mod slots

Your proposal would give max crafted and max looted the same mod slots, but looted would still have better average stats.

Not to mention it would be back to the days where you never knew how many mod slots were in your item. Currently it is clear how many mod slots an item has at a glance, immediately. Level 1, 2 items have 1 slot, level 3, 4 items have 2 slots, level 5 have 3 slots, and level 6 have 4 slots. Being able to quickly understand things at a glance is important in a game, and changing that would be a change for the worse

 
I was only putting forth an idea to at least give crafting some value. I get the idea that TFP want T6 to be special and that you'll have to find them.

Either it's bugged or mod slot have a random feature. I've gotten T3 items with 3 mod slots.

 
even if I spec HARD into a given attribute, I'm STILL more likely to FIND a level 6 version of the weapon/armor/tool I've specced into LONG before I can craft a level 5 one. For finding one...I just have to find it...that's all...or save up and buy one from a trader. For crafting one, I need to hit level 10 in an attribute, level 5 in the governing skill, get access to steel (or military fiber), And after all that I STILL need to find the schematic AND find enough of the item to scrap it several times for enough parts. The RNG for actually crafting a level 5 version of an item is SIGNIFICANTLY harder/more restrictive than finding a level 6 version of that item in loot or a trader inventory...It's currently much harder to accomplish less...
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I completely agree. The current setup has basically nerfed crafting. I don't know about a singleplayer game, but in my multiplayer game we stopped getting useful crafts after tier 3. You have to find so many parts to craft an item, what are the odds that one of the items Isn't tier 6? and honestly, mostof the reason i go all the way into a perk is to craft tier 6. By the time we could have crafted a primitive bow, we looted a Compound bow.

I feel like becoming self sufficient isn't a terrible idea either. I mean, that's the end goal in many a zombie movie. AND, even if we could craft tier 6 from the beginning, we would still need the brass we get from looting. Maybe just make it even MORE difficult to craft Tier 6? I would like to loot for fun. What if the quests had a little more story to them?

 
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I found a level 5 steel sledgehammer in a tier 4 POI...
All of the steel sledgehammer parts I'd been trying to save up to eventually make one became instantly worthless...I'd NEVER need them again.
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Existence of random stats completely invalidates that.

You might craft much better one with more mod slots then you have found.

Or worse one. Random stats.

 
Existence of random stats completely invalidates that.You might craft much better one with more mod slots then you have found.

Or worse one. Random stats.
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Or put that ton of perk points you wasted in crafting on combat skills instead, and you far outweight the few extra stats you have just a chance to get when crafting.

 
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Or put that ton of perk points you wasted in crafting it and put them on combat skills, and you far outweight the few extra stats you have a small chance to have while crafting.
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Wasted?

So you do not want better performing tools then? Because *whispers* this is no longer A17 or A16 or A15, perks improve crafting quality AND performance of items.

Yeah, 80-100% better tools regardless of how you got them is such a waste of perks.

You sure you played A18 yet or are you just reading notes and complaining?

 
perks improve crafting quality AND performance of items.
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First good argument you have made in about 30 posts. At least regarding this topic.

Yes, Im taking miner69 100% of the times anyway like you say, that's true, and raises another crafter/builder issue regarding the perk distribution.

 
I can't see this as any kind of issue regardless of how you put it.

If you're lucky and find a tool, great! You've got good tool and perk makes it perform even better!

If you're unlucky for raw drop, but accumulated enough parts and crafted one, great! You've got good tool and perk makes it perform even better!

For whatever reason you see this win-win situation as always lose.

How's that crafter builder issue, if you don't need to invest into attributes that contribute completely nothing to your playstyle just because they have that one specific perk that does exclusively one thing and nothing more?

I've got the feeling like you're still thinking in A17-A16 way while being on A18, forgetting completely that A17 FORCED you into deep int speccing regardless of how you wanted to play, which is no longer a problem in A18.

Wasn't being forced into attribute specifically one of your problems? So why are you ignoring that everyone was forced into int previously regardless of playstyle?

 
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The whole idea of needing parts to craft stuff is pretty dumb in my opinion. I can craft a fully functional 4x4 with just some random materials I've scavenged but I need to go out and find parts to make a wooden baseball bat? I can craft generators and an entire electrical system that runs power to my whole base and various traps is very easily done but I need parts to create a steel sledgehammer? I can understand the need for parts for guns to a degree, still seems like with some of the stuff I can craft from scratch that gun parts wouldn't be a challenge either but I could understand those.

 
The whole idea of needing parts to craft stuff is pretty dumb in my opinion. I can craft a fully functional 4x4 with just some random materials I've scavenged but I need to go out and find parts to make a wooden baseball bat? I can craft generators and an entire electrical system that runs power to my whole base and various traps is very easily done but I need parts to create a steel sledgehammer? I can understand the need for parts for guns to a degree, still seems like with some of the stuff I can craft from scratch that gun parts wouldn't be a challenge either but I could understand those.
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You're looking at it from a logical stand point and not a game play stand point. Sure, needing parts to craft a baseball bat is silly... but the point is to control access to better tools and weapons. Tier 3 weapons and tools require uncraftable parts to delay people's access to them.

 
I don’t look at like I need to find parts to craft a weapon. It’s more like I can scrap all the low tier weapons I find and at least make some kind of use of that scrap.

 
You're looking at it from a logical stand point and not a game play stand point. Sure, needing parts to craft a baseball bat is silly... but the point is to control access to better tools and weapons. Tier 3 weapons and tools require uncraftable parts to delay people's access to them.
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Having to find the schematic/book needed to unlock the recipe should be good enough in my opinion. Lower the rarity and make them only spawnable after a certain game stage. I think that would be a better solution than to require parts but that is just one guys opinion.

 
Having to find the schematic/book needed to unlock the recipe should be good enough in my opinion. Lower the rarity and make them only spawnable after a certain game stage. I think that would be a better solution than to require parts but that is just one guys opinion.
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But once you get the schematic you can make as many as you want. Parts both slows your access but also restricts how many get added to a game. So you can't craft a boat load and sell them to a trader.

 
But once you get the schematic you can make as many as you want. Parts both slows your access but also restricts how many get added to a game. So you can't craft a boat load and sell them to a trader.
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Traders will only buy items until they have 3 in their inventory so at most you will be able to sell 3. Not that great of a money maker compared to the resources needed. Plus if it's late enough in the game where the schematics will actually spawn and you still need money then you probably don't know how to sell things to the trader anyway lol. Also what does the trader sell now that you are so worried about people getting access to?

 
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