PC LBD talk is RIGHT HERE
- Thread starter Roland
- Start date
Viktoriusiii
New member
basicially this ^^
Khulkhuum
New member
Raging discussions on!
WARNING! The below proposition may cause laughter, stomach ache, headaches, facepalms, WTFs or cause doubts on the authors sense of sanity, intelligence and/or logical thinking.
So... MY TWO CENTS: Change the XP system to something different yet the same. You gather XP from various sources, but each perk/skill requires an increasing amount of XP points to level up and your overall level is determined by how many points you invested. Something alongside Souls currencies. This allows:
1. Increasing GameStage only when you put points in (if you don't want to), but still would need to shift Ferals higher than GS 50 and Rads even more than they are now.
2. Feel the grind for XP directly, because only the lower levels will require small amounts of XP, so progression early on will be fast, slowed down by higher amounts required on higher levels. No more dull gathering of 4 skillpoints across many levels, just gather more XP!
3. Dying will diminish some of your gathered XP, making death really hurt, but lets you retain some (let's say 50%).
4. Add an NPC that will level you up! This could be done by paying a small fee and having a specific amount of XP gathered. Extend that to multiple NPCs you have to meet that will teach you appropriate skills.
5. If you're willing to mix things up, why not make a couple different XP bars (categories) which will increment from various sources. It's LBD in a new light, but allowing usage of General XP (gathered alongside specific XP). Think gathering XP like in Fable (additional paremeter of name "TYPE" in the ExpGain attributes everywhere in XMLs).
WARNING! The below proposition may cause laughter, stomach ache, headaches, facepalms, WTFs or cause doubts on the authors sense of sanity, intelligence and/or logical thinking.
So... MY TWO CENTS: Change the XP system to something different yet the same. You gather XP from various sources, but each perk/skill requires an increasing amount of XP points to level up and your overall level is determined by how many points you invested. Something alongside Souls currencies. This allows:
1. Increasing GameStage only when you put points in (if you don't want to), but still would need to shift Ferals higher than GS 50 and Rads even more than they are now.
2. Feel the grind for XP directly, because only the lower levels will require small amounts of XP, so progression early on will be fast, slowed down by higher amounts required on higher levels. No more dull gathering of 4 skillpoints across many levels, just gather more XP!
3. Dying will diminish some of your gathered XP, making death really hurt, but lets you retain some (let's say 50%).
4. Add an NPC that will level you up! This could be done by paying a small fee and having a specific amount of XP gathered. Extend that to multiple NPCs you have to meet that will teach you appropriate skills.
5. If you're willing to mix things up, why not make a couple different XP bars (categories) which will increment from various sources. It's LBD in a new light, but allowing usage of General XP (gathered alongside specific XP). Think gathering XP like in Fable (additional paremeter of name "TYPE" in the ExpGain attributes everywhere in XMLs).
RipClaw
Well-known member
Actually I was only looking for iron tools because I couldn't make them myself up to level 20. I did quests to get some iron tools as a reward or to find tools in the POIs. After that I did base building most of the time and fended off the blood moon horde and suddenly I had a lot of ferals and radioactive zombies in the POIs. If that's what you call grinding then there's something wrong with the system.
Spam crafting is no longer possible since Alpha 16 at the latest and yet it still appears as an argument. Why should the discussion about LBD be different ?
I disagree. Since the POIs are stuffed with bags full of cobblestone and concrete, the one who is focused on fighting can easily build a base. If you're mainly engaged in melee combat, you won't have any problems collecting resources because the perks you need are under strength.
Grue
New member
Not everything has to be a dichotomy, there is this long forgotten concept called compromise, that helps people work together and be happy with the result, often both sides are more happy with the result than if one or the other had gotten their way completely.
It should not be all one way or all the other way.
It is more a matter of finding a good balance on the spectrum between between full LBD and full perk points.
In this case, a balanced hybrid approach would be the way to go.
To be clear A16.4 was already a hybrid approach, it has LBD and Perks and it worked just find. All it needed was some balancing and they could add in the new perk trees at the appropriate spots.
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Grue
New member
It is not an attack on your character Roland, I am just saying that since you love and support anything they put in front of you, your opinion no longer matters because you are equally happy regardless of the outcome.
Mind you, it is not me invalidating your opinion, you are doing this to yourself by choosing to be stubbornly indifferent to the quality and features of the game.
Now, I do not know if that is because of your semi-official role as a PR/Community manager and you feel the need to toe the company line, or if you legit do not care what features go into the game. It honestly does not matter because the outcome is the same.
It is like ordering a pizza. We all agree we are having pizza (a zombie game), we all pitched in the same amount of money.
If I like supreme pizza, but one of the people at the party hates mushrooms we can still order a supreme sans mushroom.
Compromise, both are happy.
If one person must have pepperoni and another must not have pepperoni, you are looking at a half-and-half pizza solution.
Compromise, both are happy.
If someone wants pineapple, anchovy, and jalapeno, that is great-- you be you man, but you will need to wait for mod support.
But if you will eat literally anything at all on your pizza and shout down anyone who dares say it is not the best damn pizza ever, then with all due respect, scoot to the side and let people who actually have an opinion of their own select the toppings.
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Roland
Moderator
Then there's you at the party. Red-faced and screaming at the people who chose pizza you don't personally like that they must be shills of the pizza restaurant for liking the pizza they do or must have damaged taste buds or must simply be retarded because in your world there is no concept that the rest of the world is not you.
If this was a pizza party I think you'd be tossed out and uninvited for such boorish behavior.
If you continue to insult people with name calling and ascribing motives to their preferences that denote a lack of intelligent thought or an abundance of TFP ass kissing, I'll be the one doing the tossing.
Let me be clear because you seem to me to be someone who can't differentiate between being told to not criticize and to not be disrespectful. I have no problem with you championing the preferences you feel are important and outlining the weaknesses in the current design as you see it. But as soon as you cross the line into making it personal against other members of the community or the developers themselves you will be gone from here left to dishonestly claim on your downgraded review about how TFP can't take criticism and so you were banned by their malicious moderators....
Roland
Moderator
Despite your assumption of me to be a one-dimensional idiot, I will say to other readers that I don't love and support anything they put in front of me. I have been against their implementations of experience points from the start. I have posted many times in the past from A12 to now while it was implemented that "learn by doing" is like adding gasoline to a fire. The game for so long had nothing to do with gaining experience and then when it was added that's what it became ALL about for many people in the community and then as they added in the accelerant of LBD it got even worse.
LBD is like crack for those who are susceptible to focusing on experience gain and I don't like how it comes to overshadow the organic and thematic aspects of surviving in a zombie apocalypse game to the point that actions are taken primarily to increase a bar. I made these arguments long before A17 was set before me.
I have even learned how to mod to the point that with some help with SDX I have created a mod that gets rid of experience points and returns the game to what I believe are its roots.
SylenThunder
Community Moderator / IT Guru
LOL remember the days back in a13 or a14 when he said a15 would probably be the last Alpha.
I'm certainly glad they didn't stop there.IMHO, LBD is only for min/maxers and does not contribute to solid gameplay mechanics. Firing 2-3 thousand arrows just to raise the skill one point was stupid.
Roland
Moderator
Yes...they've been "rushing" to Gold since A14....lolLOL remember the days back in a13 or a14 when he said a15 would probably be the last Alpha.
IMHO, LBD is only for min/maxers and does not contribute to solid gameplay mechanics. Firing 2-3 thousand arrows just to raise the skill one point was stupid.
AtomicUs5000
New member
Same can be said about a perk point system when the main source is XP. Why you picking on LBD?
Any game mechanic that becomes addictive like crack is exactly what game developers strive for... and then they put that little safety notice about taking periodic breaks when playing the game.
Indeed, accomplishment makes you release dopamine or something like that if I'm not mistaken.
It sure makes the journey enjoyable.
Grue, I feel like A16 was already a hybrid system but that it wasn't what MM/TFP envisioned.
MM has stated his choice at the moment, we'll see what the books collections bring to the table.
It sure makes the journey enjoyable.
Grue, I feel like A16 was already a hybrid system but that it wasn't what MM/TFP envisioned.
MM has stated his choice at the moment, we'll see what the books collections bring to the table.
AtomicUs5000
New member
I always saw the LBD part (1-100) of A16 as bonus. It happened in the background very slowly as you did stuff. The perks were always instant improvement. What made it bad was the level gates, which made the perks-only system of A17 bad as well. The grinding to level came from that. It took this long for them to realize that, it’s too bad we’ll never see how good a Hybrid system would have been without the level gates.
Roland
Moderator
All I can speak to is my own experience. For me, the game becomes more in-your-face-this-is-all-about-gaining-experience when mechanics are in place that continuously award xp for each action and then marks that progress in various bars and the only (smart) way to increase those bars is through repetitively doing that activity. It makes it extremely easy to shift focus from mining because I need ore or want to build an underground network of bunkers and tunnels to mining to make the bar go up. To me, thinking about increasing stats while I play is jarring and metagamey just like I wouldn't want heatmap stats visible on the screen. It moves the game from something you are doing in a virtual world to a spreadsheet game of increasing stats.
Common xp pool for me is better because I have the peculiarity of not caring whether one activity or another is the most efficient activity of rapidly gaining xp. I do hate the xp harvest icon in the corner and the xp bar above the toolbelt. It would be better without those things so I'm not being constantly reminded of the xp I'm gaining from every activity. I like common pool because I can do anything and spend my points in anything and there is not any repetitive activity that I must do to increase a particular stat. In my mind, I see the spending of points as areas I plan to grow in rather than areas that grew in resulting from any particular activity and since I tend to do a variety of activities since I don't care about the one most effective for xp gain, my points feel like they are a result of generally surviving and getting more capable in the world.
Now that's just me. And for me, even the current implementation is too much of a focus on xp so I finally got around to creating my own version that cuts away the xp altogether and I really have been enjoying that.
However, I've been around a long time and I have seen the changes in what is posted about the game and I found that with the introduction of experience points the whole conversation about the game and what type of game it is and how it must be played fundamentally changed with the addition of experience and not for the better. I don't blame LBD for that but as I said, if experience gain is a fire that attracts the focus of the player then the LBD mechanic is gasoline poured on that fire.
Roland
Moderator
Modders removed the level gates in A16 within the first week or two. Level Gates were one of the major HELL NO features of A16 for some. I think at least some people know....
I like slowly growing in the background. If TFP could work it so that it truly was in the background and not in your face and put structures such as diminishing returns or limits per day so that it couldn't be rushed then....it would be highly unpoplular I suspect. Honestly, in most conversations I've had with LBD fans, being able to speed level and play the efficiency game is as much a part of the appeal as any immersion factor of LBD. I've always maintained that I play the game organically without regard to how efficient one activity is over another for experience gain and I keep getting told that very few people play like me. Rest in Pieces maintains that people can't play like me in general because the allure of the xp incentive is too strong for most gamers.
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Hek Harris
New member
I didn't care about the disappearance of LBD with A17. As a former player, I was happy to see things change, because new mechanics are always a good thing especially when they come with new challenges. But I didn't know which system was the best: to be honest, there was so many new features in A17 that it was totally anecdotal for me.
But after having read all the LBD topics written by obsessive nostalgic players, I'm now sure that LBD sucks. Thanks guys
But after having read all the LBD topics written by obsessive nostalgic players, I'm now sure that LBD sucks. Thanks guys
Morloc
Arch Necromancer
That's an extremely interesting point (to me), because I can't quickly/easily provide the answer. It's been my experience that LBD maxing is more addictive than experience grinding (even when that experience is earning points which are "spent" on skills which would seem on the surface ultimately the same as LBD).
If I consider my experience with the Bethesda Elder Scrolls (Morrowwind, Oblivion, Skyrim) I think of how LBD all but ruined the RPG leveling feel. The convoluted way they tied skills with stats was counter-intuitive once you passed the mid-point of leveling. Don't get me wrong, it's great at first, but leads to some LEGENDARY-long spam skilling sessions that have little to do with gameplay.
Another LBD game is Wasteland 2. I remember starting and loving that game, only to restart a couple more times and quit. It's my own fault of course...my mental need to max things and the MANY skill checks against your skills dragged you far away from the gameplay and heaven-forbid, story of the game.
It's got to be a purely psychological thing, but the generic "XPs" and levels we gain in most games still gate our abilities, but since in 7D2D for example I can gain XP in many ways and then apply it to certain skills/stats, it's more generic and thus (I think) I am less driven and focused about any given "merit badge". I find myself breaking rock until I'm sick of it, then I kill zombies until that tires me then maybe I go do a quest. Previously I'd be making bandages and wouldn't stop until I finally got that point of Science after an hour.
Given the choice of making bandages, or choosing a variety of other activities which are much more associated with actual gameplay, I choose the flexible generic option.
I WILL say that I'm open to a hybrid system, but it would need to discourage pure LBD play. Diminishing returns on LBD in a given day seems the best option AND that MUST be for ALL LBD...otherwise after I'm done spam-crafting stone axes, I'll just move on to jumping a lot and then making bandages; cycling through all the skills until another day has past. I.e. once you've reached the maximum that you can gain from LBD in a day from any and all skills combined, you're done.
-Morloc
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