RestInPieces
Refugee
For argument's sake, let's say that perks in A17 are theoritically divided in 3 categories. Survival-related perks, Gameplay style perks and Recipe-related perks. It would certainly be much better to wait until A17 before giving feedback but anyhow here's some feedback on the perks preview and a counter-suggestion for "recipe perks".
Recipe perks tied to exploration instead of leveling
(Recipe perks = all perks related to "tech progression").
I think that not taking advantage of exploration, with a very important player motive like tech progression, is a waste. I know the "playstyle freedom is the all-important principle" for a lot of people and I do support it, but a game also needs to make players engage in its content within some bounds and playstyle freedom must be within those bounds, not outside of them.
Outside those bounds, (e.g. encouraging a player to forever stay in an underground base, not experiencing much of the content), will ironically make the players ask for more content (similar to the "encouraging players to actively kill zombies, will make them view the gameplay loop as a grind", but that's a discussion for another day).
In short, besides not being immersive, I think it is a wasted opportunity making recipe perks tied to leveling, so here's a suggestion.
Description:
-Similarly to Subnautica, many POIs have a (small-large) adjustable chance of spawning a theme-friendly (to the POI), item of interest (recipe item), which the player will be able to inspect so that he can "reverse-engineer" them.
-Items of interest could be crafting stations, destroyed vehicles and everything else recipe-related. I think that even more items can be "gated through" exploration, than the current amount of items gated behind perks.
-Items of interest would be POI-specific so that the player "deducts" and eventually knows which POIs he needs to visit to have a chance to find them, which is tbh realistic. For example, a military base or similarly-themed POIs will have a chance to spawn an inspectable destroyed static jeep part etc, or a hospital can have the chance of having an inspectable chem station or a cabinet with recipes for herbal medicine etc.
-Besides items of interest, better theme-friendlier loot distribution of recipes for consumable and non-vital items.
-Gating progression can be adjusted through chance of item of interest spawning in that POI and number of inspections in "damaged" items of interest, for non-modular recipes (like they are gated in Subnautica). Inspection can still be tied to attributes. "Events" can happen in the vincinity of these items of interest for extra difficulty factor.
Goal: To make tech progression rely on exploration, still be dependent on the player's control and choices with only a small amount of RNG and adjustable difficulty/accessibility and making finding cities/villages with various special POIs a more interesting event.
Notes:
-It still must be of at least a little worth for the player to visit any non-specific POIs (like generic houses).
-Many recipes/books/loot must still be random but loot distribution overall would be more thematic and less generic (I mean right now, you still find more meds in a hospital, or guns in a military base but I think there's some room for making all POIs matter more).
Survival-related gameplay working with (and not against) survival perks
(survival perks = anything related to survival elements like food,weather,disease etc)
As it seems some perks offer increased survival convenience. Same happens in A16 to some extend. I have no idea how changes will affect the meaning survival-related activities. Lack of spoilage already makes food collection more or less obsolete after some time.
While I do think that survival-related perks can work nicely by making your character more resilient to his needs and environment, they should definitely not cancel out survival gameplay like shrugging off diseases/injuries or making food/water/meds less valuable, because this also works against the "gameplay loop" of progressing enough to acquire these resources more easily.
If survival-related resources are easy to acquire though or penalties don't have enough impact, consequently, toned-down perks will not be lucrative enough for the player to get them. For example, if breaking bones, infection, food poisoning or bleeding were impactful enough, it would be worth getting exclusive perks that alleviated their effects.
At any case, I feel the survival aspect of the game needs to be more impactful in its core (therefore I can't give specific feedback - too many things "missing" as I see it), with dangerously escalating diseases, injuries, hunger/thirst penalties, spoilage, so that perks related to them can be equally impactful and finally, be more closely tied with "tech" progression ("tech" progression examples - from finding a pot to creating a farm or purification devices).
Gameplay perks
(action or strictly rpg/character-related perks)
I liked perks that had more "special/intuitive" bonuses, like stamina regeneration, consecutive blows dealing critical hits or increasing attack speed, even increased chance to stun or knockback. Much better than flatly increasing damage for sure.
One thing I didn't like was getting the extra head damage or stun immunity, exclusively from a perk, because it kind of works against a part of the inherent fps/action aspect of the game. Instead, would prefer that the head multiplier remains inherent and just gets increased by the perk or stun duration/effect being decreased.
In general I am optimistic about this update and the new system because there are a lot of ways to make it more immersive in the future. One way, for example, could be attribute-specific exp/players being able to raise attributes through actions, so that layers specialize through their gameplay style, instead of choosing arbitrary perks to determine their gameplay style. Besides, as an immersion warrior myself, mining all day, raising strength, becoming stronger and hitting harder with melee weapons for example, makes even more sense than the previous system did.
Recipe perks tied to exploration instead of leveling
(Recipe perks = all perks related to "tech progression").
I think that not taking advantage of exploration, with a very important player motive like tech progression, is a waste. I know the "playstyle freedom is the all-important principle" for a lot of people and I do support it, but a game also needs to make players engage in its content within some bounds and playstyle freedom must be within those bounds, not outside of them.
Outside those bounds, (e.g. encouraging a player to forever stay in an underground base, not experiencing much of the content), will ironically make the players ask for more content (similar to the "encouraging players to actively kill zombies, will make them view the gameplay loop as a grind", but that's a discussion for another day).
In short, besides not being immersive, I think it is a wasted opportunity making recipe perks tied to leveling, so here's a suggestion.
Description:
-Similarly to Subnautica, many POIs have a (small-large) adjustable chance of spawning a theme-friendly (to the POI), item of interest (recipe item), which the player will be able to inspect so that he can "reverse-engineer" them.
-Items of interest could be crafting stations, destroyed vehicles and everything else recipe-related. I think that even more items can be "gated through" exploration, than the current amount of items gated behind perks.
-Items of interest would be POI-specific so that the player "deducts" and eventually knows which POIs he needs to visit to have a chance to find them, which is tbh realistic. For example, a military base or similarly-themed POIs will have a chance to spawn an inspectable destroyed static jeep part etc, or a hospital can have the chance of having an inspectable chem station or a cabinet with recipes for herbal medicine etc.
-Besides items of interest, better theme-friendlier loot distribution of recipes for consumable and non-vital items.
-Gating progression can be adjusted through chance of item of interest spawning in that POI and number of inspections in "damaged" items of interest, for non-modular recipes (like they are gated in Subnautica). Inspection can still be tied to attributes. "Events" can happen in the vincinity of these items of interest for extra difficulty factor.
Goal: To make tech progression rely on exploration, still be dependent on the player's control and choices with only a small amount of RNG and adjustable difficulty/accessibility and making finding cities/villages with various special POIs a more interesting event.
Notes:
-It still must be of at least a little worth for the player to visit any non-specific POIs (like generic houses).
-Many recipes/books/loot must still be random but loot distribution overall would be more thematic and less generic (I mean right now, you still find more meds in a hospital, or guns in a military base but I think there's some room for making all POIs matter more).
Survival-related gameplay working with (and not against) survival perks
(survival perks = anything related to survival elements like food,weather,disease etc)
As it seems some perks offer increased survival convenience. Same happens in A16 to some extend. I have no idea how changes will affect the meaning survival-related activities. Lack of spoilage already makes food collection more or less obsolete after some time.
While I do think that survival-related perks can work nicely by making your character more resilient to his needs and environment, they should definitely not cancel out survival gameplay like shrugging off diseases/injuries or making food/water/meds less valuable, because this also works against the "gameplay loop" of progressing enough to acquire these resources more easily.
If survival-related resources are easy to acquire though or penalties don't have enough impact, consequently, toned-down perks will not be lucrative enough for the player to get them. For example, if breaking bones, infection, food poisoning or bleeding were impactful enough, it would be worth getting exclusive perks that alleviated their effects.
At any case, I feel the survival aspect of the game needs to be more impactful in its core (therefore I can't give specific feedback - too many things "missing" as I see it), with dangerously escalating diseases, injuries, hunger/thirst penalties, spoilage, so that perks related to them can be equally impactful and finally, be more closely tied with "tech" progression ("tech" progression examples - from finding a pot to creating a farm or purification devices).
Gameplay perks
(action or strictly rpg/character-related perks)
I liked perks that had more "special/intuitive" bonuses, like stamina regeneration, consecutive blows dealing critical hits or increasing attack speed, even increased chance to stun or knockback. Much better than flatly increasing damage for sure.
One thing I didn't like was getting the extra head damage or stun immunity, exclusively from a perk, because it kind of works against a part of the inherent fps/action aspect of the game. Instead, would prefer that the head multiplier remains inherent and just gets increased by the perk or stun duration/effect being decreased.
In general I am optimistic about this update and the new system because there are a lot of ways to make it more immersive in the future. One way, for example, could be attribute-specific exp/players being able to raise attributes through actions, so that layers specialize through their gameplay style, instead of choosing arbitrary perks to determine their gameplay style. Besides, as an immersion warrior myself, mining all day, raising strength, becoming stronger and hitting harder with melee weapons for example, makes even more sense than the previous system did.
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