PC Looting Progression Plan

[Dracula]

Drac calls it utterly unplayable and yet we had 35,000 doing just that this weekend. Maybe next weekend will drop to 10,000 and TFP will take a second look. Maybe their telemetry will show them things that will motivate them to make some adjustments. 

Or, in my case, I installed a mod that fixed looting and have been able to have fun again; to quote the two most common pieces of advice on the forums:  "get gud.  mod it."

 

[Xtrakicking]

I voted 2.

As of A19, I think the loot progression is very frustrating and acts against the enjoyment of the overall experience. I must say, however, that the future plans sound very promising. It seems like big places, such as gun stores or hardware stores, will be worth looting again, and even more thrilling than now. Let's hope the whole system gets implemented soon.

Also, if the plan is to add gamestage modifiers to specific containers, does that mean containers such as gunsafes and armored chests will have appropiate loot inside them? I really hope so, cause part of the frustration in this A19's loot system lies in the contents of these containers early on.

 

[leaderdog]

I understand your feeling about wanting to have a playable game but TFP have to have development as their first priority. They need to be able to do things that facilitate their work and priorities and not constantly worry about whether some will like it or not. They provide the means to revert to an earlier version or mod it if the current state is insufferable for whatever reason. Early Access is precisely the umbrella that allows them to release things that are a WIP. 
 

It also is plainly not a universally hated state. Drac calls it utterly unplayable and yet we had 35,000 doing just that this weekend. Maybe next weekend will drop to 10,000 and TFP will take a second look. Maybe their telemetry will show them things that will motivate them to make some adjustments. 
 

But telling them to please wait to release anything until it is done is the antithesis of what we paid to participate in. 

You are correct of course the pimps need to find what works and develop, no question, although as I said, this release of the loot wasn't fleshed out well enough and I suppose depending on how hard it is to move it to the next phases this may have been unavoidable.  I still think it could have been held off.  And dropped all at once.  There were plenty of changes in this release to keep everyone satisfied without it.

Good to hear how many are playing, that's awesome, although, how many of those people are modding the game?  I am, do you count me as one of the happy A19ers? I'm not.  And without the mod on nexus it would be one less.  How many are playing A19?  is it the 35,000?  I know people are still playing A18 Darkness falls and plenty I hear/read people are still playing A16.  Using a blanket statement that there are x number of people playing doesn't tell you the details which is a bit of an untruth.  Kind of like how politicians use stats to prove their point but let's face it we know politicians are liars.  (Please don't take it negatively, I have great respect for you and how you handle yourself, but it's just that number doesn't tell us everything).

And this is the pimps game, so it's ultimately their choice that will lead to the final product whether they listen to criticism and complaints or not.

 

[Psychodabble]

I get that it's a temporary state, but the one question I have is... why push that half-assed feature out for A19 ? If I remember correctly, madmole even stated it has been a last minute idea / feature; so basically, what was the motivation behind pushing out Step 1. of a slow/linear/predictable/boring progression, instead of keeping it stashed for when the rest of the feature is ready ?

I voted 2 but quite frankly it's probably a mixture of 1 and 2. I really dislike it as is, and haven't been playing lately and I doubt my group is thrilled about continuing our current game. We'll probably hope for a very good A20, even though madmole stated A20 is gonna be fairly small and mostly polishing / eye candy.

Exactly this. The plan sounds fine and dandy, but forcing step 1 into A19 when it alone has such a powerful negative influence on gameplay was a bonehead move that I cannot see any benefit to.

 

[leaderdog]

@meganoth I'm not saying all RPG's are perfect nor do their lore explain "everything" never once did I say that, and I don't care for online Multiplayer rpgs at all.  WoW was the only one I played for a long time and I got BORED of it because after a while it's just plain boring doing linear all the same things with slightly larger mobs which are the exact same as the low level mobs.  I did try Elder Scrolls online with some friends and again same thing, boring.  Soooo boring it's all the same crap over and over again.

So no not all lore is great for rpg games.  But the truly good ones.  I suppose you could put D&D in this, though I've only played the odd D&D game on the computer. They have an established lore, ,or reasonable lore or at least interesting lore.

But as I said if this is a few weeks/months after the fall of the world and the zombie apocalypse is now here.  A real time strategy (RTS) approach to leveling is just nonsense.  Pretty near every house would have a hammer.  i know there are about 10 in this house.  Pretty much every house would have a shovel, again closer to 10 here.  Hell we even have an anvil, a workbench, a vice, a sledgehammer, and a myriad of hunting rifles.  You know what we don't have?  We don't have stone axes, no primitive bows, we have a few pellet guns though.  But don't think that would be effective for anything but target practice, nor would I use it for such.

I don't want a simulation!  You keep telling me that is what I want.  What I want is a good game with reasonable decisions and a"stage" from primitive to modern weapons/tools makes no reasonable sense.

A game you could consider a simulation is Stranded Deep.  I play that with a buddy who is quadriplegic (guy I am employed to take care of),  It used to be more simulation/survival like and then they introduced levels.  You're on a dang island and have what you need to build the speargun, but you can't make it until level 5 crafting.  ugh.  So you have to go build a bunch of other things and wait until you get there.  Same with the raft material, you can't use tires (although I still think tires is stupid, they'd sink) until you're level whatever but yet you have a bunch of tires.  Yet it's to complicated to lash them together like you would sticks or the buoy balls.   That makes the simulation now a game because it's gating for the sake of gating.

Anyways.  I'm fine with a lot of gameyness in 7d2d but when you start gating crap just because you want to slow down the start it's not enjoyable for me.  If you enjoy that then congrats you have what you like.  The rest of us should have a way to shut that crap off easily or like I had to do, wait until some kind soul posts a mod to return the game I enjoy.

Once again, I don't care for the guns  and I think the whole tool thing is balanced backwards.

 

[Dracula]

This poll really needs an option that's between 1 and 2.  I'm playing 19 with a mod that reverts it to 18 looting, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to see things change/progress in future versions.

I will state that, in terms of fundamental philosophy/development almost everything madmole says makes me lose faith in the direction of the game.  Fix the terrain, you sons of whores!  I care more about that than I ever will about bandits.

 

[Psychodabble]

Or, in my case, I installed a mod that fixed looting and have been able to have fun again; to quote the two most common pieces of advice on the forums:  "get gud.  mod it."

This is a HUGE problem with TFP simply taking their cues from telemetry instead of actually listening to players. Unless their telemetry can tell them whether and exactly what people have changed, it's pretty much worthless.

 

[Dracula]

This is a HUGE problem with TFP simply taking their cues from telemetry instead of actually listening to players. Unless their telemetry can tell them whether and exactly what people have changed, it's pretty much worthless.

Indeed; especially since simple mods can completely change the whole feel of the game.  The loot mod I got from Nexus makes the game playable by, essentially, reverting it to A18 with better graphics.  I'd also like to see a "Darkness Falls" update for A19 that would bring back LBD and I still dream of a fix for the texture issues that madmole has outright said that they're ignoring.

 

[JCrook1028]

@JCrook1028 The Mondy release for the public, is what most people really annoys about the streamer weekend. You can see all the new shiny stuff all the weekend, and when you can finally play it, you have a full week of work ahead of you. One reason i don´t watch a single streamer on streamer weekend, mainly because i want to discover things myself tough.

Well that's not what he said tho... He said the streamers got it a week early. No, they did not. They got it 3 days early. Facts matter.

 

[RipClaw]

Exactly this. The plan sounds fine and dandy, but forcing step 1 into A19 when it alone has such a powerful negative influence on gameplay was a bonehead move that I cannot see any benefit to.

Already A17 forgotten ? Many things were unfinished there as well but nevertheless A17 was released. This was fixed in A18 and A20 will be the fix for the people who don't like A19.
 

This is a HUGE problem with TFP simply taking their cues from telemetry instead of actually listening to players. Unless their telemetry can tell them whether and exactly what people have changed, it's pretty much worthless.

Telemetry is more reliable. If someone is satisfied with something, they will be quiet, but someone who is unhappy will express that unhappiness strongly. As a result, often a unhappy minority is very loud while the majority says nothing.

 

[PPanda0421]

There is a lot of frustration surrounding the looting progression of A19. Some hate the fact that sealed containers have primitive gear in them. I am not going to speak to that in this post. What I want to mainly address is the overall plan as it has been revealed for loot progression. I hope to alleviate fears but I also recognize that you can't please everyone so I'm sure that there will be those upset by even the overall plan and you are welcome to share your opinions here once you understand where this is all headed.

Currently loot progression has been slowed down and gated by gamestage milestones. Once you reach a certain gamestage you will begin to see better loot as well as tougher enemies. This progression is not strictly "leveled loot" but more like "leveled probabilities". You still have a chance at getting high tier gear at low gamestage but it is extremely rare. Probabilities shift towards high quality goods becoming more likely to appear as your gamestage increases. This means of course that you can still also get crappy primitive stuff from time to time even if your gamestage is high.

WHERE IS THIS ALL LEADING?

The good news is that the current progression is just a first step towards an ultimate goal. The goal, in case you were wondering, is to have a wide variety of loot that is exciting to obtain while at the same time maintaining the relevance of crafting in the game. Also the devs want there to be differentiation and risk assessment when deciding to go for particular loot. Historically it hasn't really mattered much where you looted as it was all the same loot wherever you went. Shotgun Messiah boxes in a simply house attic in the forest was exactly the same as Shotgun Messiah boxes in the Factory in the wasteland. The devs want the latter to have more exiting things in them as long as the player is willing to take on the greater risk in obtaining them.

WHAT CHANGES WILL BRING THIS ABOUT?

These are the changes revealed by Madmole in the dev diary that they plan to do. There has been nothing said yet about backtracking any of these design choices so as of now these steps are still the plan. Other than Step 1 which has already happened there is not particular order to the next steps and most if not all of the rest could be completed by time A20 comes out so the order won't really matter to us.

Step 1: Tie both loot and enemies to player gamestage. This has been slowly happening (mostly with enemies) since A17 but really took a huge noticeable leap in A19 when the loot had its turn to get in line with gamestage. THIS IS THE PRESENT STATE

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ PLANNED

Step 2: Add a modifier to each biome and each POI that increases the player's gamestage while inside it by a certain amount. That modifier could be zero or it could be much higher. Modifiers of POIs within Biomes with modifiers would stack. By making it possible for POI's and Biomes to have a higher gamestage rating that will result in both tougher enemies and better loot.

Step 3: Add primitive weaponry for each attribute tree so that there is greater variety of weaponry that works well with each attribute during the primitive stage.

Step 4: Add legendary weaponry so that there is even greater variety. The most recent remarks by Madmole that I remember were that legendaries will be of any quality tier but have special mods pre-attached that will give great bonuses when using that weapon. Could this mean that plain quality six gear could be re-opened to crafting? Possibly but that hasn't been confirmed.

Step 5: Add a Random Encounter Manager so that random encounters can happen giving the player the illusion of greater zombie activity without hurting performance. This feature would also tie into the gamestage system to create a range of risky encounters. An example would be a regular supply drop would have gamestage modifier of 0. But the random encounter manager could place a crew of bandits around that supply drop adding a significant gamestage modifier and thus making the loot in that supply drop much better than it would have been.

Step 6: Implement a method for preventing the nerdpole smash and grab. There has been no official word on what that method will be although Madmole seems to like the idea of needing to find a key.

RAMIFICATIONS

Once all the pieces are in place we will be back to a world with diverse loot to be scavenged-- way more diverse than ever before. Players will decide for themselves by assessing risk and rewards for whether they want to play it safe and slowly progress by sticking to easier areas and letting their own unmodified gamestage determine the loot they get and enemies they face or whether they want to enter the wasteland and search an infested factory for the best loot. If they get it and survive then they will have a definite advantage in the early game.

One thing I didn't mention which could also relate is that there is code right now for three levels of radiation with indicators for the player for when they enter areas of that intensity of radiation. It seems that this, once implemented, could tie in as well to this system but it hasn't been mentioned like the six I outlined by Madmole.

Step 2: This won't do much and you'll still have the same problem! You'll still get lots of the same type of tools/weapons at the same gamestages (range)

Step 3: Won't do much except instead of one type of crappy primitive weapon you get a variety of crappy primitive weapons. Again you still get a bunch of them during the same gamestages (range)!

Step 4: Seems like endgame that has nothing to do with linear loot progression issue. You're just adding another quality here.

Step 5: Seems like a questing but instead of you starting it whenever you want, it's forced upon you. Also don't you already have this in-game with the different wandering hordes?

Step 6: NO. Why prevent the player from doing whatever they want? If they want to cheese it let them! Its their world give them the freedom to do whatever they want! You allow them to enable cheat mode to spawn in items but you won't allow them to place blocks down (e.g. nerdpole)? Yes, fantastic logic there...

Some ideas:

I think that gamestage should be ignored for looting. For all loot there is a chance to get the higher level tiers albeit that chance is very very small. However the chance goes up when you loot specialty/treasure chests and when you use the looting skills/items.

So there's a very very very low chance that you get a level 4 pickaxe on day 1. Suppose you get one. You're set right? Nope. If you're low level then you're less effective at using higher tier tools/weapons and they also degrade much faster. It might be better to use a tool appropriate for your level. However at least you found a higher tier tool which you can use later.

Bottom line, we don't want to have dozens of the same types of tools/weapons. We want variety so that looting appears more random. We like to scavenge and we get excited when we find new and better stuff. Give us incentives/motive to loot more.

 

[RestInPieces]

Poll title is about the current loot progression, yet all the options ask for an opinion for something that hasn't happened yet. Fix please.

 

[Kalen]

but you won't allow them to place blocks down (e.g. nerdpole)

I think you're misunderstanding.   They're not talking about removing the ability to nerd pole.... they're talking about making it impossible to just go straight to the end of the POI loot room (in *some* of the POIs, not all) and get the loot.   You'll have to search the POI for a key to unlock the loot room.

 

[Dracula]

Poll title is about the current loot progression, yet all the options ask for an opinion for something that hasn't happened yet. Fix please.

I made a new thread that asks JUST that:

 

[Roland]

Poll title is about the current loot progression, yet all the options ask for an opinion for something that hasn't happened yet. Fix please.

Nah, it’s good. You don’t have to participate. If there was no way to explain your selection I might agree but my whole purpose in this was to get opinions about the current status knowing that it is just an initial step and not the final design plan. If I thought the current progression was the planned progression forever I would feel much different about it than I do knowing that it is temporary. 
 

Sounds like Drac has a poll with zero context that you can go vote in. 

 

[Boidster]

I think you're misunderstanding.   They're not talking about removing the ability to nerd pole.... they're talking about making it impossible to just go straight to the end of the POI loot room (in *some* of the POIs, not all) and get the loot.   You'll have to search the POI for a key to unlock the loot room.

I think you're misunderstanding. The key would almost certainly be for the loot container, not the room it's in. If we start to see impenetrable rooms in houses (made of Trader-style gong blocks?), well...ALL OF THE HAIR will be on fire in these forums.

ETA: I voted 3. It's fine. It'll be fine in the future. I think it's fine, I guess, because I understand about the future plans. So maybe I'm a low-energy 4 instead of a 3. I paid for a pre-release game and I'm gettin' what I paid for. Not worth the stress to freak out over stone tools in a crate.

 

[Kalen]

I think you're misunderstanding. The key would almost certainly be for the loot container, not the room it's in. If we start to see impenetrable rooms in houses (made of Trader-style gong blocks?), well...ALL OF THE HAIR will be on fire in these forums.

ETA: I voted 3. It's fine. It'll be fine in the future. I think it's fine, I guess, because I understand about the future plans. So maybe I'm a low-energy 4 instead of a 3. I paid for a pre-release game and I'm gettin' what I paid for. Not worth the stress to freak out over stone tools in a crate.

Well, I didn't mean unlock the room itself, I meant unlock whats in the room.... but, yeah, I could've been clearer.   Since it hasn't been decided one way or the other yet, who knows how it will be.

 

[RestInPieces]

Nah, it’s good. You don’t have to participate. If there was no way to explain your selection I might agree but my whole purpose in this was to get opinions about the current status knowing that it is just an initial step and not the final design plan. If I thought the current progression was the planned progression forever I would feel much different about it than I do knowing that it is temporary. 
 

Sounds like Drac has a poll with zero context that you can go vote in. 

Already did. So, you are asking for an opinion on the basis of something that hasn't happened yet. That's cool, people do it all the time in these forums, although their title usually reflects they are talking about an expectation, not a state. Feel free not to fix it though.

 

[PPanda0421]

I think you're misunderstanding.   They're not talking about removing the ability to nerd pole.... they're talking about making it impossible to just go straight to the end of the POI loot room (in *some* of the POIs, not all) and get the loot.   You'll have to search the POI for a key to unlock the loot room.

No I'm not misunderstanding. I know he was talking about POI lootroom because he explicitly said 'nerdpole smash and grab.' Most of us long-time players are familiar with it. I haven't heard about a 'key' implementation since I don't follow the devs diary thread but I'm basing my comments on his original post. My point is still the same. Let us do what we want since it's our world. If it's a bug then fix it. Nerdpoling is more like a strategy/shortcut. If you've done the same POI dozens of times and are familiar with it why can't you take a shortcut? If we want xp we'll go through the normal route. If we're just there to loot the final chest, let us do that. Don't force to fit your playstyle.

It's like the issue with undergound bases. Some players liked to bypass the horde by hiding undergound. Then they made changes so that zombies dig and you could no longer hide underground (or at least hide easily) during horde night. After a dozens and dozens of horde nights I sometimes like to take a break.

They like to force 'full experience' on us a lot...

 

[Kalen]

No I'm not misunderstanding. I know he was talking about POI lootroom because he explicitly said 'nerdpole smash and grab.'

Oh ok, I was just confused by your comment "but you won't allow them to place blocks down".   That makes it sound like you thought that they're going to remove the ability to place blocks down.