PC Is there any point in the game stage where you're more likely to get a book from a bookshelf or stack?

ElCabong

ElCabong

Well-known member
This current map I'm using now has two cathedrals very close to each other. I usually loot the bookshelves and Hope I get a mission later. With a 20 though, I so rarely get a book from a bookshelf I've been putting it off thinking, well, if I wait later I'll have a better chance of getting a book.

That may not be the case and I should go ahead and loot them anyway. 

 
That line of thinking is too meta for my taste. I enjoy the game better by pretending I am my character who has no knowledge of “loot tables” and “Lootstage”. Those are all concepts you know thanks to hanging out in the forum or studying the code yourself. 
 

If you came upon a church and saw a bookshelf with possible information you could learn, you’d rifle through it. So go for it. There will be more bookshelves later on. The probabilities and stages of progression are meant to be background processes and not necessarily things you play the odds against in all your choices. 
 

of course, if using player knowledge of how things are coded is what is fun for you do that and definitely wait to open it until you are higher gamestage. :)

 
I haven't played the most recent update, but when A20 initially went stable it felt like it was reasonably kind and I always feel like I get books closer to my skill tree. Example: more shotgun books if I spec into shotguns. It's felt like this for a long time to me, and it could be entirely mental. It isn't 100%, and repeats are common, but it feels like the game kind of gives you a bone there. I could be crazy or lucky, or both.

 
ElCabong said:
That may not be the case and I should go ahead and loot them anyway.
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Bookshelves do have Lootstage-scaled results, so you would increase your chance of getting better books if you waited. But the chance for getting any book is not Lootstage-scaled. The game decides pretty early in the decision tree "Paper or Books?" and that decision is not based on Lootstage.

Once you get "Books", though, you will get into some Lootstage-scaled results, with rare books being more likely as your LS increases. Here's a snippet from from the Loot Logger mod for a bookshelf search. You can see that the "booksAllScaled" group (Spawn Event 8) is using non-scaled probability templates like "high" and "medHigh". But once the "schematicsModsAndGeneralCommon" group gets selected, it switches (Spawn Event 10) to LS-scaled templates like "ProbT1Cap" and "ProbT2Cap".

This was a low-level character, so both ProbT1Cap and ProbT2Cap resulted in 0.0 probability, forcing me to get a Tier-0 result (Needle & Thread schematic).
 

Code: 
=============================================================================================================
  Spawn Event 8 (type=SpawnFromList)
  Spawning 1 time from booksAllScaled; total non-force Prob=2.98 (denominator for NProb calc)
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  ITEM or GROUP                  |     Templ     | Force | Prob | NProb | CProb | RNG Checks Hit/Miss          
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  perkBooks                      |     high      |  No   | 0.75 | 0.25  | 0.25  | 
  farmingCookingRecipesCommon    |    medHigh    |  No   | 0.63 | 0.21  | 0.46  | 
  schematicsWeaponsArmorCommon   |      med      |  No   | 0.50 | 0.17  | 0.63  | 
  schematicsModsAndGeneralCommon |      med      |  No   | 0.50 | 0.17  | 0.80  | #1(0.79); 
  schematicsElectrical           |      low      |  No   | 0.20 | 0.07  | 0.87  | 
  schematicsToolsCommon          |      low      |  No   | 0.20 | 0.07  | 0.93  | 
  schematicsVehiclesCommon       |      low      |  No   | 0.20 | 0.07  | 1.00  | 
    =========================================================================================================
    Spawn Event 9 (type=SpawnFromGroup)
    Spawning 1 time from group 'schematicsModsAndGeneralCommon' - see following log entries for RNG results
      =========================================================================================================
      Spawn Event 10 (type=SpawnFromList)
      Spawning 1 time from schematicsModsAndGeneralCommon; total non-force Prob=1.00 (denominator for NProb calc)
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      ITEM or GROUP              |     Templ     | Force | Prob | NProb | CProb | RNG Checks Hit/Miss          
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      schematicsModsAndGeneralT0 |               |  No   | 1.00 | 1.00  | 1.00  | #1(0.19); 
      schematicsModsAndGeneralT1 |   ProbT1Cap   |  No   | 0.00 | 0.00  | 0.00  | 
      schematicsModsAndGeneralT2 |   ProbT2Cap   |  No   | 0.00 | 0.00  | 0.00  | 
 
Roland says just keep to the knowledge your character has and don't play the odds vs the probabilities in the code which are supposed to stay behind the curtain.

Boidster says take a look at my awesome spreadsheet I found behind that curtain over there!!!

 
Roland said:
Roland says just keep to the knowledge your character has and don't play the odds vs the probabilities in the code which are supposed to stay behind the curtain.

Boidster says take a look at my awesome spreadsheet I found behind that curtain over there!!!
Click to expand...
Funny thing is, I don't look at my lootstage number when I am looting a POI; I just loot the containers in it.  And I know the about the loot probability tables already through looking at the underlying xml code.

But it also may be because I don't play the game to get the "great" loot as soon as possible.  I just play the game and figure out how to make do with what I got.

 
Roland said:
Boidster says take a look at my awesome spreadsheet I found behind that curtain over there!!!
Click to expand...


Boidster says, "somebody asked for knowledge and I happen to be able to provide it!" What they choose to do with it is up to them. I happen to think it's interesting to understand how TFP constructed the loot system. Perhaps others do too. We sure seem to get a lot of questions (and misinformation spread) about it.

BFT2020 said:
Funny thing is, I don't look at my lootstage number when I am looting a POI; I just loot the containers in it.
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I play this way as well.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
BFT2020 said:
But it also may be because I don't play the game to get the "great" loot as soon as possible.  I just play the game and figure out how to make do with what I got.
Click to expand...
Me three.

theFlu said:
The mailboxes are rigged to give three* early game booksets quickly, beyond those they're less useful.

*Archery, spears, knitting
Click to expand...
Makes sense since I never make it past "early".

 
I agree with Roland here. There will always be more loot containers. As you progress you will find more bookshelves. There will be more locked chests. There will be more wall & gun safes. Eventually there will be a crackAbook POI you could reset numerous times at the trader. Just loot them as they come!

I recently watched a popular streamer not looting cars during the first few days because cars are valuable loot containers with higher gamestage. But there are hundreds or even thousands of cars on a map so why save for later? Doesn't "waiting" somehow rob fun and exciting moments of the early game?

 
BFT2020 said:
I just play the game and figure out how to make do with what I got.
Click to expand...


IMO, this is where the true fun of the game shines. The thing is if you play this way you get both kinds of fun. You get the puzzle aspect of figuring out how to make do with whatever you have on hand AND eventually you get the unstoppable force kind of fun for having all the best gear completely kitted out with attachments and maxed in the perks that govern them.

Some of my favorite memories of the game is being midway through a quest, out of ammo, infected, broken leg and down to 10% health and still determined to not abandon it. Being weak and vulnerable can be a whole lot more thrilling than being strong and invincible.

 
PoloPoPo said:
Doesn't "waiting" somehow rob fun and exciting moments of the early game?
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Well; it used to. You had a tiny chance of awesome things on day 1. Once you realize that possibility having been balanced out of the game, you know you'll find just stone shovels today; it becomes a little less exiting. Whether you know it by experience or by xml doesn't really change much.

 
I believe hard work should be considered an alternate route to acquire a recipe that just doesn't seem feasible to acquire when the drop rate is bs, even with all the necessary perks for loot.

 
SURVIVE said:
I believe hard work should be considered an alternate route to acquire a recipe that just doesn't seem feasible to acquire when the drop rate is bs, even with all the necessary perks for loot.
Click to expand...


Combo-breaker!

You're supposed to post that the modders will take care of it...

 
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