PC Looting Progression Plan

[meganoth]

At this juncture, I'm gonna ask a list of all the people who have said they wanted everything at once. This statement is starting to get old.

Well "locking out the loot" seems like an equally overblown assertion, I just wanted to keep the standard. I find good loot all the time. And I needed a short "catch phrase" to summarize the contrary viewpoint, don't take it too serious. The important part is that no early challenge is offered and that is at least as problematic as some people not getting their instant gratification

 

[Boidster]

I dont think thats how it works.... in your GS 1 example, I don't think its 100% chance of a T0 because there is no T1.   I believe its still 16% chance of T0.   If it was 100%, there would be at least a T0 item in every container with this lootgroup, which is not the case.

Well, I did simplify quite a bit to very quickly get down to where the GS-scaled loot probability tables are used. But to address your point, first keep in mind that all loot containers and loot groups have "the math" applied to them. So there's several layers of probabilities and RNG rolls that take place. I only showed a partial example of how two individual items in the very lowest branch of the tree would calculate. But if we go back to the top:

<!-- shotgun Messiah -->
<lootcontainer id="50" count="1,3" size="6,4" sound_open="UseActions/open_cardboard" sound_close="UseActions/close_cardboard" loot_quality_template="qualBaseTemplate">
<item group="groupAmmoRegular" prob=".3"/>
<item group="groupWeaponsAllScaled" prob=".4"/>
<item group="groupModAllScaled" prob=".1"/>
<item group="weaponParts" count="1,5" prob=".15"/>
<item group="groupArmorScaled" prob="0.2"/>
<item name="resourceRepairKit" count="2,3" prob="0.1"/>
</lootcontainer>


You can read this as:

• Anywhere from 1 to 3 selections will be chosen from this list (RNG roll for 1...3); duplicates are possible (i.e. two stone axes, yay)
  
• 24% chance of something from groupAmmoRegular (The Math is 0.3 / 1.25)
  
• 32% chance of something from groupWeaponsAllScaled (0.4 / 1.25)
  
• 8% chance of something from groupModAllScaled (0.1 / 1.25)
  
• 12% chance of 1-5 items from weaponParts (0.15 / 1.25)
  
• 16% chance of something from groupArmorScaled (0.2 / 1.25)
  
• 8% chance of 2-3 Repair Kits (0.1 / 1.25)
  

You can see that those all add up to 100%. To get actual true probabilities of getting item X, you gotta dive into all of those groups to see what items are in them and what their individual probabilities are. Except for the Repair Kits - that's just a straight 8% chance to get 2 or 3 of them.

I'm happy to walk deeper into this if you want.

 

[Kalen]

I'm happy to walk deeper into this if you want.

Its cool... that part I understand (if you saw my edit, I realized my mistake).   What I don't understand is the part when the probabilities do not add up to 100% like in your example with the T0/T1.   You're making the assumption that it just scales up to 100% which may be correct, but doesn't appear to have any documentation to support that.

 

[Boidster]

Its cool... that part I understand (if you saw my edit, I realized my mistake).   What I don't understand is the part when the probabilities do not add up to 100% like in your example with the T0/T1.   You're making the assumption that it just scales up to 100% which may be correct, but doesn't appear to have any documentation to support that.

Oops, sorry I missed that. As for how the >1.0 total probabilities are handled it's a combination of "something I've somehow always known/has always worked for my modlets" (not very convincing, I know - I'm pretty sure I read it in a dev comment back in A17 or A18) and also this from the A19 patch notes:

• Loot probability templates normalised to 1 to make them usable in more situations 
  

As a system, the [item prob] / [sum of all item probs] makes good sense for ease of weighting. But if they're not normalized to 1.0 then you gotta open up Calculator to figure out true probabilities, which is annoying. From their point of view, though, if they have a lootgroup of 30 items and they just want to nudge Stone Axe to be slightly more likely in gun safes (ha) then they'd have to re-normalize all 30 items back to 1.0. As it is, they can just double the prob for Stone Axe and know that they have approximately doubled its likelihood.

The re-normalization of all 30 has the benefit of clearly seeing what effect making Stone Axes twice as likely in gun safes is. To wit: a dozen forum threads complaining about it.

 

[Kalen]

Oops, sorry I missed that. As for how the >1.0 total probabilities are handled it's a combination of "something I've somehow always known/has always worked for my modlets" (not very convincing, I know - I'm pretty sure I read it in a dev comment back in A17 or A18) and also this from the A19 patch notes:

As a system, the [item prob] / [sum of all item probs] makes good sense for ease of weighting. But if they're not normalized to 1.0 then you gotta open up Calculator to figure out true probabilities, which is annoying. From their point of view, though, if they have a lootgroup of 30 items and they just want to nudge Stone Axe to be slightly more likely in gun safes (ha) then they'd have to re-normalize all 30 items back to 1.0. As it is, they can just double the prob for Stone Axe and know that they have approximately doubled its likelihood.

The re-normalization of all 30 has the benefit of clearly seeing what effect making Stone Axes twice as likely in gun safes is. To wit: a dozen forum threads complaining about it.

Cool... thanks dude!

 

[AtomicUs5000]

It's a good thing that the xml parser normalizes the probabilities. Imagine all the broken mods due to bad math.

 

[Kalen]

It's a good thing that the xml parser normalizes the probabilities. Imagine all the broken mods due to bad math.

Back in A15 (I think it was) I wrote an application that parsed the XML so I could search for specific items and see where they dropped and at what percentage.  I remember the math being a bit of a nightmare because the percentages were not normalized.

I think I did it so I could find flippin' calipers.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Back in A15 (I think it was) I wrote an application that parsed the XML so I could search for specific items and see where they dropped and at what percentage.  I remember the math being a bit of a nightmare because the percentages were not normalized.

I was confused too for a long time. There have always been groups of xml that don't add up to a 1.0 probability. I posted to ask about it and never received an answer from anybody. It just didn't make sense to me... even the vanilla game simply should not work. I tried asking about it in dev diary from time to time but never got an answer from anybody there either. I suspected that something must calculate normalized values, but I didn't know for certain until they mentioned how they redid some things with initially normalized values years later. A comment in the xml might help. An explanation post in the modding section would help too.

 

[Boidster]

So this is great news. It means that the system is designed to be modifiable either by the developers as they balance and tune or by modders as they search for their own preferences. I think it would be enjoyable to change some of those probabilities and see how it affects the game.

This is a fun one:

<lootgroup name="groupBirdNest" count="1,2">
    <item name="foodEgg" prob="0.25"/>
    <item name="resourceFeather" count="1,5" prob="0.75"/>
    <item group="groupWeaponsT3_Ranged" count="2,3" prob="1" />
</lootgroup>



See now THIS is how the loot should work in A19!

 

[Kalen]

This is a fun one:

<lootgroup name="groupBirdNest" count="1,2">
    <item name="foodEgg" prob="0.25"/>
    <item name="resourceFeather" count="1,5" prob="0.75"/>
    <item group="groupWeaponsT3_Ranged" count="2,3" prob="1" />
</lootgroup>

View attachment 14139

See now THIS is how the loot should work in A19!

Are you kidding?  Where are the eggs?  What a ripoff.... worst nest ever

 

[Worrun]

Like many others, the new loot system has killed it for me. From March 2020 to July 2020 I went from 200 hours to over 900 hours played on Steam, since playing A19 experimental for about 10 hours I haven't touched the game for more than 10 minutes at a time, perhaps 2 or 3 times since.

It's just not fun finding blunderbuss after blunderbuss, or stone sledgehammer after stone sledgehammer, until I eventually level up and start to randomly find better items.

It should be like Roland has toyed with, harder areas for better loot - like Morrowind.

 

[Laz Man]

I believe there's a misconception, then. There's a difference between people who just want to have a chance of finding every item in loot, even if the good stuff is very rare, and people who want everything at once. Heck, the second guy you quoted even said "albeit that chance is very very small." and "So there's a very very very low chance that you get a level 4 pickaxe on day 1.", though of course, you didn't highlight those parts.

Here's the thing...how much of a very small chance is enough?  Its a moving target depending who you ask and at the end of the day ruins progression if excessive.  I remember some people who would actually restart their game after they got certain items too early.

 

[Kalen]

Here's the thing...how much of a very small chance is enough?  Its a moving target depending who you ask and at the end of the day ruins progression if excessive. 

Thats the real trick.... anything higher than zero is fine by me, but I suspect that wont be enough for everyone.

I remember some people who would actually restart their game after they got certain items too early.

Now that is just silly.... I think the randomness of loot makes some of the best gameplay.   Remember the frustration of not finding "Forge Ahead" in a reasonable amount of time?   I hated that.... until I kept playing and had to adapt my gameplay around not having a forge early enough.   It ended up being a lot more fun, because it was unexpected.   Likewise, I remember a game where I got a decent hunting rifle early.   I never used hunting rifles all that much.... didn't like them.   But, that game I used it.   I ended up doing something new, and it was fun.   

These are the kinds of things that are lost when you have a fairly standard loot progression.

 

[Laz Man]

Thats the real trick.... anything higher than zero is fine by me, but I suspect that wont be enough for everyone.

Now that is just silly.... I think the randomness of loot makes some of the best gameplay.   Remember the frustration of not finding "Forge Ahead" in a reasonable amount of time?   I hated that.... until I kept playing and had to adapt my gameplay around not having a forge early enough.   It ended up being a lot more fun, because it was unexpected.   Likewise, I remember a game where I got a decent hunting rifle early.   I never used hunting rifles all that much.... didn't like them.   But, that game I used it.   I ended up doing something new, and it was fun.   

These are the kinds of things that are lost when you have a fairly standard loot progression.

Fair enough.  I personally wouldn't want a t2 or higher weapon drop early game.

So now we know the future plan from Roland's OP.  As a community, let's put together a list of requirements for a mod to tide us over until the plan is implemented. 

@Roland, let me know if I should start a separate thread.

For example:

1) All weapons/armor/tools containers need a 1% chance to drop up to +1 tier loot by < GS 10

2) All weapons/armor/tools containers need a 1% chance to drop up to +2 tier loot by 10 > GS < 20

 

[Kalen]

Fair enough.  I personally wouldn't want a t2 or higher weapon drop early game.

So now we know the future plan from Roland's OP.  As a community, let's put together a list of requirements for a mod to tide us over until the plan is implemented. 

@Roland, let me know if I should start a separate thread.

For example:

1) All weapons/armor/tools containers need a 1% chance to drop up to +1 tier loot by < GS 10

2) All weapons/armor/tools containers need a 1% chance to drop up to +2 tier loot by 10 > GS < 20

To balance it you really need item degradation.... I've been trying to think of a way to mod it in but there just doesn't seem to be an easy way.  At least not that I can think of.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

I remember some people who would actually restart their game after they got certain items too early.

I haven’t gone that far with loot, but I have restarted a couple of times (by coincidence, twice in a row) because I spawned near a trader who happened to have every station in working condition. I mentioned it to MM and he  just said something like, well, that’s RNG, you got lucky. For me, these were broken games as RNG completely removed most of the early game struggle in an instant.

I still believe some things like that should probably be completely preventable, regardless of how slim the chance might be.

 

[Weazelsun]

I'm still mixed feeling about the current way loot is tied to game-stage in this alpha. I like it in that it now makes me feel more less-fast paced about looting everything, but once I hit the higher game-stages, sometimes RNG just doesn't like to have good loot.

 

[Laz Man]

To balance it you really need item degradation.... I've been trying to think of a way to mod it in but there just doesn't seem to be an easy way.  At least not that I can think of.

Thats fine, it doesn't have to be perfect.  A good start is to keep the requirements simple.

 

[Roland]

So now we know the future plan from Roland's OP.  As a community, let's put together a list of requirements for a mod to tide us over until the plan is implemented. 

@Roland, let me know if I should start a separate thread.

You want to attempt....consensus?

Definitely a different thread and for starters we need to come up with a way to mod the community.

To balance it you really need item degradation.... I've been trying to think of a way to mod it in but there just doesn't seem to be an easy way.  At least not that I can think of.

Easiest would be to just remove repair kits from the game. Anything that can be repaired without one isn’t really worth keeping for the whole game so primitive repair could remain but T1+ would degrade. 

 

[Laz Man]

You want to attempt....consensus?

Definitely a different thread and for starters we need to come up with a way to mod the community.

Yep, its more productive for folks to channel their energy into a workaround/solution instead of just repeating their displeasure in multiple treads over and over