PC Looting Progression Plan

[alanea]

Problem1: High end tools and weapons were abundant in A18.

Problem2: There should be at least a minimum of items available in each house.

Solution: Make zombies level be respective to the loot around them, not the other way around. Have house loot containers have a minimum set of certain items but still bound them to zombie level difficulty.

Balancing game loot can be really hard on the developers, but it needs to be both realistic and fun to play with. Currently the loot table is balanced but it lacks realism.

problem 3:  any zombies  can be cheesed by blocks/killed by spikes

so result would be  = cheese one loot room/sneak in grab steel tools/guns and run = perfectly mimicking A18 state

not to mention any zombie in game is trivial with Q1 pistol and few wood frames especially with so abundant ammo

 since you can build up  3-4 blocks above ground  and those irradiated bikers will just punch wall while you shot them

you can bet bonus to gamestage from biome/ poi tier will be mild and you can bet it will contain harder zombies as well

since it would make no sense to buff waterworks loot if it was guarded by walking cheerleaders on early days like now

Yeah, that's about the progression system, as already the threat title says.

In the overall context, people complain about not being able to find fire arms early. Right... progression system enforces that.

But in the context of the walking dead example you should also not find primitive tools in any safes or boxes, because they are REQUIRED to be handmade.

Dunno if it occured in this thread, but in many other threads people also complain about that there ARE primitive tools in loot boxes.

Removing primitive tools from all loot tables would solve that, but of course not that you still can't find fire arms early.

That leads me to another idea. Primitive tools should not be able to damage e.g. safes. So you reqiure to find a iron tool first OR lockpicks to open a safe. E.g primitive tools don't do any damage to any block that has more than 2000hp. Would be even more realisitc. However still wont overcome that you can't find any firearms early, also not in safes.

actually nice idea if it required steel tools 

- because iron tools can be easily made from day 1 all you need is forge  .. some metal clay and 2 perks

+ it would make lockpicks more meaningfull as well

- still even rng lockpick way to find  auto shotgun on day 1 is problem

Another idea: The block's HP you are hitting affects the durability of your tool. So you may use a iron pickaxe to open the small 2500hp safes relatively comfortable, but hitting a big 7500hp safe, will break your iron tool after few hits. So you require a huge amount of repair kits (but still possible to do) or you wait until you have steel tools, which have far loss durability loss on high-hp blocks.

nice idea but bit overcomplicated (whole new mechanic) with almost 0 impact  repair kits are ridiculously easy to make once you have forge ... and thats what most people do on day 1

durability is pointless  if you can pump out hundreds of repair kits .. the only thing limiting you is ductape

not to mention gas pump boxes commonly drop  20-25 repair kits

So i hope you understand: The basic idea is to make it (almost) impossible to even open safes that early. (But still not a solution to crates or weapon bags, where bags are not sealed and can be considered to be left from other survivors, so still may contain primitive tools for a reason).

best idea  so far is to make safes drop corroded/damaged useless guns or just parts to reflect it  the system itself is correct you are not supposed to gets guns early apart from toilet pistol all TFP need to adress is immersion broken by primitive stuff in safes

 

[Liesel Weppen]

nice idea but bit overcomplicated (whole new mechanic) with almost 0 impact  repair kits are ridiculously easy to make once you have forge ... and thats what most people do on day 1

durability is pointless  if you can pump out hundreds of repair kits .. the only thing limiting you is ductape

It is a new mechanic, there you are right.

The crucial factor however is time. If you need to repair your pickaxe every 5 hits it costs a lot of time and becomes anyoing.

Also i mentioned, you could make tools make no damage to certain blocks, so even repair kits would be useless.

best idea  so far is to make safes drop corroded/damaged useless guns or just parts to reflect it  the system itself is correct you are not supposed to gets guns early apart from toilet pistol

And from a sudden time safes surpisingly don't just contain parts, but whole guns?

all TFP need to adress is immersion broken by primitive stuff in safes

That's a different point i explained detailed. Did you read that? The topic here was "can't find guns" not "finding primitive tools breaks immersion". For the immersion reason, you could simply remove primitive tools from loot tables completely.

 

[JCrook1028]

This is actually a terrible example.... because they start with modern gear and over time move to using primitive items because their gear breaks down.   In 7 days (and most games) its the opposite, you start low tech and progress to high tech.  Personally, I would love it if 7 days mirrors TWDs equipment usage and you start with high quality stuff that degrades over time.... so you have to learn how to adapt with low tech gear.   But, obviously, that's not going to happen.

We started with high end gear too.... but it made for a terrible gameplay loop. Plus our world here in game did not start at the beginning, it's been years. The quote I responded to was not only about the game.... read it. It said NO MEDIA .... I simple showed an example proving that statement wrong.

 

[alanea]

It is a new mechanic, there you are right.

The crucial factor however is time. If you need to repair your pickaxe every 5 hits it costs a lot of time and becomes anyoing.

Also i mentioned, you could make tools make no damage to certain blocks, so even repair kits would be useless.

it was reply to durability ... since it means almost nothing at this moment even if i delat 100 damage  and repaired every few hits

it means safes would cost me   5/10/20  repair kits (2,5k/5k/10k)  20 ductape for auto shotgun or steel tool in stone age ?  yes please

And from a sudden time safes surpisingly don't just contain parts, but whole guns?

That's a different point i explained detailed. Did you read that? The topic here was "can't find guns" not "finding primitive tools breaks immersion". For the immersion reason, you could simply remove primitive tools from loot tables completely.

primitive stuff  in safes exist  to keep something in them its far better than empty safe

because guns early  completely annihilate progression . negating whole  A19 effort thats why they are gone and wont return

it basically means

A) guns wont drop early in favor of primitive stuff appropiate to gamestage = people comnplain how immersion breaking is stone shovel in safe

B) safes contain guns  ... but with mechanic that prevents opening them in first weeks (lockpick perk behind  10  stat/hardlocked behind level) = people will complain about level lock .. as in A17

C) safes will drop something else like mods or gun parts(broken guns) and ammo but no guns early = people will cry about useless safes since they cannot craft their auto shotguns withou gamestage locked recipe anyway and they wont bother with  q2 q3 double barrel even if they have parts

that kinda covers all options they have .. pick your poison

TFP made clear

1) early guns are negative for progression and wont happen apart from primitive ones(A20) and q1 pistol + some trader stuff (seems more like leftover than choice .. since day  1 trader can sell even  q3 magnum)

2) progression will stay no matter what and was planned some time already ... so better get used on using stone / iron tools  .. 7 days is no longer steel only game and wont be ever again

3) top tier Q6 stuff stays locked at very high gamestage and uncraftable .. same as legendary weapons

 

[UrstMcRedHead]

I don't see any benefit to a looting progression system like this, and it just leads to wasting points into a skill that is now useless. Also the reasoning for this system sounds like the devs saying that this game doesn't waste enough time because for some reason we need to have a feeling of slow progression for the 50 hours that it's supposed to take to reach the difficulty plateau. It just ends up feeling cheap, and petty instead.

The lucky looter system isn't going to scale to groups either since you're all just going to pick different skillsets, and the guy who picks Miner69ers is going to be building better stone tools for everyone until you find a claw hammer.
Then he's going to be building medium/high quality Iron tools while you're still finding level 6 stone shovels that are useless to the entire group. Then you're going to need it briefly again when you salvage the gun parts that you're already stated out to build on your own.

So it feels like you're getting cheated on solo, and it's outright dumb in groups.

I'd rather build an A18 game, and increase the difficulty 20 hours in when it starts getting boring because I can just own my own server.
 

 

[Roland]

I don't see any benefit to a looting progression system like this, and it just leads to wasting points into a skill that is now useless. Also the reasoning for this system sounds like the devs saying that this game doesn't waste enough time because for some reason we need to have a feeling of slow progression for the 50 hours that it's supposed to take to reach the difficulty plateau. It just ends up feeling cheap, and petty instead.

How so? If you can go to a more difficult biome where you can get better loot then as long as you can survive the risk you are taking upon yourself you won't have to slowly build up your character for 50 hours. I mean even with the current progression 50 hours is a gross exaggeration as you start getting better stuff after the first week in game. In the planned one you will be able to get better stuff a lot sooner if you are willing to take the risk.

What is the skill that you are saying will be useless?

The clear benefit of the planned progression is that risk and reward will be linked. The wasteland will be where the best loot is and you will need to explore around until you find it and then risk going in for it. Or you can stick to the safety of the forest biome and build yourself up slowly before going into the wasteland. How is that cheap and petty?

The lucky looter system isn't going to scale to groups either since you're all just going to pick different skillsets, and the guy who picks Miner69ers is going to be building better stone tools for everyone until you find a claw hammer.
Then he's going to be building medium/high quality Iron tools while you're still finding level 6 stone shovels that are useless to the entire group. Then you're going to need it briefly again when you salvage the gun parts that you're already stated out to build on your own.

That is true right now in this unfinished work-in-progress version of the progression system but this thread is about the way it will be and in that scenario, you'll be able to go into a tougher location and possibly find something better than your friend can craft on Day 1. In A17 and A18 crafters were paralyzed because everything could be looted at a higher quality than they could craft from the beginning. In A19 crafters can finally keep pace or exceed what can be found in loot (but probably only with tools and Miner69). In the future, you will have a choice to have your buddy craft you a yellow stone axe on day 2 or go into the wasteland and find a yellow stone axe on day 1. <shrug>

Lucky Looter adds to your gamestage for loot so it will scale with the planned progression system. If you take lucky looter AND loot in the wasteland then you will be even more likely to scavenge items that are higher in quality than your buddy can craft. Then when he offers you some tools you can tell to keep his shoddy junk to himself.....

So it feels like you're getting cheated on solo, and it's outright dumb in groups.

How do you know what it feels like? It hasn't been implemented yet. If you are complaining about what we have right now, I was pretty clear that A19 progression is NOT the planned progression it is the current work-in-progress progression that is incomplete.

I'd rather build an A18 game, and increase the difficulty 20 hours in when it starts getting boring because I can just own my own server.

Cool. Do it.