Loot Abundance Rework

[Aithaed]

Hello.

I have a simple suggestion;

Rework how loot abundance works so that it functions off of increasing rerolls on a loot table instead of a multiplier for how much of each thing you get post-loot rolls. This would cause higher/lower loot abundances to have a stronger effect on things like how many different items you get per lootable object instead of just increasing the quantity of those things. Conversely having decreased loot abundance (below 100%) would cause reduced quality and quantity of items, and with the change it would reduce the variety of items as well.

In general, such a change would spread out the available loot to a significantly higher degree, causing far more of a given lootable object's loot table to be found at any given point in time, instead of only finding a few bits at a time in varying quantities.

My personal reason for wanting this is because I like to play on high abundance with increased EXP gain and mods, while also increasing zombie spawn rate/area cap significantly and adding in special zombie variants. So when I go to loot a chemistry table and see 59 chrysanthemums or Generic Flower(tm) instead of anything useful, it vaguely annoys me. It would also make the experience of looting a Gamestage 20 Workbench less absurd than seeing 50 Iron Bars and a stack of tool parts, instead of a variety of useful things in lower quantities.

-If you disagree with my reason for wanting this I don't care. Draw a "skill issue" card from the "your problem" deck for your trouble.

-The change itself only effects people who play on higher or lower loot abundance settings than 100%, so is mostly a "make this slightly more interesting" suggestion.

 

[Syphon583]

I don't necessarily disagree with your reasoning, but if anything it should be a separate option like "Loot Quality". Abundance is quantity, not quality, and I can see players wanting to make adjustments to both independently.

 

[Roland]

I think this is pretty easily modded. If I recall correctly loot containers have a value called "count" that dictates how many of their slots will be filled with loot. I think if you just increase that value then you should get a larger variety of loot from the table that governs that container. I think you can even go super crazy by editing the lines to count = "all" which will fill every slot of a container with loot.

 

[Blake_]

I think this is pretty easily modded. If I recall correctly loot containers have a value called "count" that dictates how many of their slots will be filled with loot. I think if you just increase that value then you should get a larger variety of loot from the table that governs that container. I think you can even go super crazy by editing the lines to count = "all" which will fill every slot of a container with loot.

I personally think that at default , loot is too high. I would tweak it down a bit -again, at default-. For example, a POI's final chest is nice with just a weapon and bullets, but not with two weapons, bullets, parts and armor mods (too much).  I'm not talking about modding the game here, but about the current balance and item slots filled vs actual effort, which is usually too much for many tier 1 and tier 2 POI, and for higher tiers can sometimes be exploitable too.

Having a single armour with 1 armour mod and a couple of magazines is cool, not 3 weapons, an armour and 230 bullets plus all of the above. 

What would I suggest? I would put it closer to 75-85 percent by default, but ensuring every container usually has something.

I would also put a boss/locked door in each POI fitting the reward. I believe this last one has been mentioned at some point.

This change will improve quest reward weight on gameplay and make looting a bit less "pinhata".

Edit: separating quality and quantity in the starting options will help too, but It won't solve the current balance.

 

[Aithaed]

I think this is pretty easily modded. If I recall correctly loot containers have a value called "count" that dictates how many of their slots will be filled with loot. I think if you just increase that value then you should get a larger variety of loot from the table that governs that container. I think you can even go super crazy by editing the lines to count = "all" which will fill every slot of a container with loot.

That's cool, and i'm not adverse to adding mods to the game or changing XML files, but I think this change would be good for the base game. 

I also still want it to be randomized; this change isn't actually about changing the total quantity of loot received, it's about changing what items would get received by increasing/decreasing the variety of items in respect to loot abundance.

I personally think that at default , loot is too high. I would tweak it down a bit -again, at default-. For example, a POI's final chest is nice with just a weapon and bullets, but not with two weapons, bullets, parts and armor mods (too much).  I'm not talking about modding the game here, but about the current balance and item slots filled vs actual effort, which is usually too much for many tier 1 and tier 2 POI, and for higher tiers can sometimes be exploitable too.

Having a single armour with 1 armour mod and a couple of magazines is cool, not 3 weapons, an armour and 230 bullets plus all of the above. 

What would I suggest? I would put it closer to 75-85 percent by default, but ensuring every container usually has something.

I would also put a boss/locked door in each POI fitting the reward. I believe this last one has been mentioned at some point.

This change will improve quest reward weight on gameplay and make looting a bit less "pinhata".

Edit: separating quality and quantity in the starting options will help too, but It won't solve the current balance.

It is entirely your opinion how much loot is appropriate to receive from POIs. There's a setting in-game to change that to whatever "more skilled" value suits your tastes (as well as mods to set it even lower), so keep it in its own thread.

This one has nothing to do with relative quantity/quality of loot, just increasing the randomization of quantity when you customize your loot abundance.

Short mention on the topic though, POIs and such are always going to be inherently piñata-esc because they give random loot. Can't argue that decreasing quantity would remove that fact, the items would still be random, so you could still potentially find a pistol in a toilet.

 

[BFT2020]

My personal reason for wanting this is because I like to play on high abundance with increased EXP gain and mods, while also increasing zombie spawn rate/area cap significantly and adding in special zombie variants. So when I go to loot a chemistry table and see 59 chrysanthemums or Generic Flower(tm) instead of anything useful, it vaguely annoys me. It would also make the experience of looting a Gamestage 20 Workbench less absurd than seeing 50 Iron Bars and a stack of tool parts, instead of a variety of useful things in lower quantities.

What you are seeking is actually changing the probabilities, which would require adjusting the loot tables themselves (in the current loot code configuration)

Using the Chemistry workstation as the example:

<!-- *** Chem_Station_Loot -->
<lootgroup name="groupChemistryStationLoot01">
    <item name="resourceWood" count="10,40"/>
    <item name="resourceGunPowder" count="20,50"/>
    <item name="resourceCropChrysanthemumPlant" count="5,12"/>
    <item name="resourceCropCottonPlant" count="5,12"/>
    <item name="resourceCropGoldenrodPlant" count="5,12"/>
    <item name="foodCornMeal" count="5,20"/>
</lootgroup>

<lootgroup name="groupChemistryStationLoot02">
    <item name="resourceScrapPolymers" count="3,10"/>
    <item name="drugVitamins" count="1,2"/>
    <item name="resourceAnimalFat" count="4,10"/>
    <item name="resourceGlue" count="1,5"/>
    <item name="resourceOilShale" count="10,30"/>
    <item name="drugPainkillers" count="1"/>
    <item name="drugAntibiotics"/>
</lootgroup>

<lootgroup name="groupChemistryStationLoot03">
    <item name="toolBeaker" loot_prob_template="veryLow"/>
    <item name="chemistryStationSchematic" loot_prob_template="low"/>
</lootgroup>
    
<lootgroup name="groupChemistryStationLoot" count="all">
    <item group="groupChemistryStationLoot01" count="1"/>
    <item group="groupChemistryStationLoot02" loot_prob_template="med" force_prob="true"/>
    <item group="groupChemistryStationLoot03" loot_prob_template="low" force_prob="true"/>
</lootgroup>




So every time you loot the chem station, you got a 50% chance of getting some sort of flower plant.  The other loot groups are set to med and low so you have to get lucky and roll on the loot table for the chem station to pick one of those items (med is 50% prob and low is 20% prob).  A slider option won't be able to affect the loot probability chances with how the game is currently coded (though I could be wrong).

Like Roland stated, modding is usually the best option to change how the loot probabilities work.  You can change the count or loot prob template to increase the amount of items you are going to get.  They are currently reworking the loot probabilities and clean it up, but I don't think the direction they are going is the way you want them to go.   They (developers) want players to work to find that sweet sweet loot, so they are not going to make it super easy to find the good stuff.  Not sure if they want to spend the resources to give that ability to players to adjust the quality of the loot found via a slider option.

I actually find myself wanting to find less equipment in the world (and typically lesser quality that you could craft yourself or buy from a trader) so I made some big changes to how the loot works in my gaming.