PC is 25% loot working as intended?

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Vomkat

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For me, the most fun is generally on day 1, and the game becomes increasingly less interesting as you find blingy loot and level up - so I try to nerf that by using 25% loot settings.

However, I've checked a lot of bird nests, and they are all empty? In fact, a lot of containers are just plain empty, and the loot level is certainly much lower than what I would expect.

I'm not exactly unhappy about this, as less loot makes the game more interesting. However, is it even worth bothering to check bird nests? Will they ever have anything in them?

Normally I would just avoid vultures, especially on day 1, but I've had to start learning to club them so that I can make arrows.

 
Yeah I got the impression something's wrong with low (<100%) loot abundance too. And I was only using 75%. Yet the first dozen or so bird's nest only yielded a single feather!

I'm not sure, but maybe the reduction is applied to both probability and count of the loot, or perhaps the item count is unintentionally rounded down to zero.

 
For me, the most fun is generally on day 1, and the game becomes increasingly less interesting as you find blingy loot and level up - so I try to nerf that by using 25% loot settings.
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Try the opposite. Set EXP gain to 300% so the enemies get harder faster to keep up with that blingy loot. Or put the difficulty up to Insane and see how far those couple of guns and couple of hundred bullets you found by day 5 go.

 
so I try to nerf that by using 25% loot settings.
However, I've checked a lot of bird nests, and they are all empty? In fact, a lot of containers are just plain empty, and the loot level is certainly much lower than what I would expect.
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So assume a bird nest would spawn 2 eggs at 100% loot spawn rate. How many eggs will it spawn when loot spawn is set to 25%?

Right, exactly zero.

I guess that's the problem with low loot spawn values. Usually such algorithms don't round values and if you put down the spawn value to 1/4 the result will be much more often 0.

Also if a bird nest has a 100% chance to spawn feathers, with 25% loot it will only have a 25% chance left. That means 3 of 4 nests will be empty (or at least not drop feathers).

The 25% are the CHANCE of something to spawn, not the amount of how many (feathers) will spawn in one drop.

 
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my nephew and I have started a run with 25% loot a couple of days ago..

i usually use the 50%, and we just got done with 100%... using these recent

plays as reference, it does "feel" like it is working pretty much as intended..

btw, in searching less than 100 (i didn't count em!) nests, there WERE a few that

had either a couple of feathers, a feather and an egg, or just an egg..

so, they ARE there, it just doesn't seem right.. especially if you are used to the 100% drop rate.

 
From what I understand of the loot xml (still digging into it out of personal curiosity), there are a few factors that determine loot

1.) Base loot rate that we set in the options

2.) Gamestage - as gamestage increase the chance for loot increases

3.) Loot Grade/Gear Tier

4.) Container defined.

Eggs and feathers don't seem to be affected by #3, but their chances to be found in nests in the xml are .25 for eggs and .7 for feathers. So, even at %100 loot rate, it's possible to run across empty nests. Lowering the loot settings might be affecting container probability (so you could be looking at .06 for eggs, and ~.18 for feathers if it's calculating the way I think.) Add in an early (low) gamestage, and it might be lower. *Disclaimer, I could be entirely wrong on how the math is working.

 
Choose 33%. It was added as a temporary fix. I believe that is the lowest percent that will allow nests and other containers to at least spawn one of something.

 
Choose 33%. It was added as a temporary fix. I believe that is the lowest percent that will allow nests and other containers to at least spawn one of something.
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except that 25% does work.. it's just really rare.

 
I've played most of my games at 25% since the option was available. It extends gameplay and keeps you scrounging even in the mid-late game.

I've had games where I've searched well over 50 nests before finding the feathers for the intro quest; so I'd say that's "normal".

The only think I ~don't~ like about the low loot setting is that it affects the drop rate within the quest treasure chests too. There's something anticlimactic about finding those empty chests almost every time ;)

-Morloc

 
So, even at %100 loot rate, it's possible to run across empty nests.
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Very minor quibble, but as of 18.2, I think, this is no longer true. Every nest is guaranteed to produce at least 1 feather at 100% loot. From loot.xml:

Code: 
<lootgroup name="groupBirdNest" count="1,2">
<item name="foodEgg" prob="0.25"/>
<item name="resourceFeather" count="1,5" prob="0.75"/>
</lootgroup>

<lootgroup name="groupBirdNestMain" count="all">
<item group="groupBirdNest"/>
<item name="resourceFeather" count="1"/>
</lootgroup>
When you search a nest, it is using groupBirdNestMain. This group contains BOTH:

1) The contents of groupBirdNest

2) A single feather

The RNG for groupBirdNest can be checked up to twice, and may return nothing at all. But you'll still get that one guaranteed feather.

 
Very minor quibble, but as of 18.2, I think, this is no longer true.
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I've started a number of 25% games since 18.3 and can assure you that the vast majority (perhaps 7 out of 8?) of bird nests contain nothing at all.

-Morloc

 
I've started a number of 25% games since 18.3 and can assure you that the vast majority (perhaps 7 out of 8?) of bird nests contain nothing at all.

-Morloc
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Undoubtedly. I'm unsure why you cut off the rest of my quote.

Very minor quibble, but as of 18.2, I think, this is no longer true. Every nest is guaranteed to produce at least 1 feather at 100% loot.
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Every nest is able to provide 1-2 feathers guaranteed regardless of loot settings....if you destroy them.

 
Try the opposite. Set EXP gain to 300% so the enemies get harder faster to keep up with that blingy loot. Or put the difficulty up to Insane and see how far those couple of guns and couple of hundred bullets you found by day 5 go.
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The problem is glowing green spider jumping zombies are just dumb. I generally quit playing at that point.

I want to play a zombie game, not a space alien game.

 
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