PC Poll - Which progression system did you prefer?

[meganoth]

I liked Learn By Doing and Learn by Perks, this one is confusing.   So - do I have it right in that if I put a point into 'bows'/'agility' I should get mostly those books from the moment I pick that perk?  At least thats how I understand it.

The system seems to be skewing - because of the way I'm picking them - in totally 'random' directions!  For instance - Prior to the change 'we'd' pick "for the first 4 points" - like lucky looter, healing factor, 'cooking' (to make bacon & eggs) whereas some would pick other things etc.  Cause prior to A21 this would give you the best chance at survival.  Albeit others would go strength and clubs and such... So, how's the system responding to this type of 'random placement'?  From my POV it's lagging.  I put one point into cooking and still getting a lot of cooking books!  Maybe it's the way their weighted?!?  IE: Early picks are weighted the heaviest and therefore you get mostly that?

I think everyone finds more cooking books than anything else because kitchens are so common. Which isn't too bad because at game start finding cooking magazines is good, but by mid game many players will likely have unlocked all food recipes (which seems too soon) but be far behind with all others magazines

On the other hand weapon boxes or weapon-themed POIs are rather scarce, especially at the start when normal players don't want to tackle tier3 POIs like the shotgun messiah store yet. At the moment that means many players have no way to craft better versions of their chosen weapon in early game and also do not find them commonly in loot as you find more weapon parts for tier 1 weapons than complete pipe weapon

There is space for improvement here.

OH!  By the way - where are the 'classes' that are constantly referred to in the release notes?!?  Or is that not in my UI?

Anyways - played a few games like the old way of picking perks and the 'book calculator' is way off!  If you pick one 'perk'/'tree' at a time it seems fine, but I'm sure I'm not the only one to wait a bit and put a few points in where every you want.  IE: I generally wait - sometimes due to combat, or because I forget or on purpose to place points because 'I need 2 or more points' to level up this one skill... The perk book picker seems to be lagging; at times from one to two 'picks.'

I 'generally' play a 'sneaking, slithering, bow using up to mid game assassin[then whatever gun I can get my slimy hands on the game]'/'crafter'/'miner type person' so I would guess that also complicates issues.  

I don't mind change - especially in single player.  But in our multiplayer game - it seems to still be skewed/lagging and possibly because of 'seemingly random' picking of perks - especially those not within the same 'tree.'  Anyone else experiencing this?  Or should we all just pick one single tree and live in that tree?

 

[Roland]

The current implementation doesn't fit those criteria. I never found a magazine for some of the skills I didn't spec into (like armors, guns skills), but I did found a lot for a few (like food, traps and seed stuff - I found a lot of those, not putting points into related skills). In my current play I found very rarely any vehicle magazine till I put 3rd point into it. So based on that (and numerous other comments here and on reddit) it seems that current implementation biases some of the magazine probability a lot, while some are just frequent no matter what you do.

I’ve read many comments as well and there are many who don’t think that the boost is working while playing on their first playthrough. I don’t know how many times you’ve restarted but I’ve restarted dozens of times over the past year and, yes, it seems to me to fit the criteria I stated. I’ve definitely had several games where the perks I took did not result in me getting a noticeable boost in parts and perks and others where the boost was quite noticeable and everything in between. After so many restarts I knew there would be a lot of divergent reports at first because everyone would be on their first playthrough and report their own experience and true enough the reports have been across the spectrum because— still pretty random despite the boost. 

 

[boban]

I don’t know how many times you’ve restarted but I’ve restarted dozens of times over the past year and, yes, it seems to me to fit the criteria I stated.

I restarted way too many times

everyone would be on their first playthrough

Assuming quite a bit here...

 

[Roland]

I restarted way too many times

View attachment 28153

If you say so. Hours played over two weeks time in which A21 was only available during one of those weeks isn’t proof. But if you say you’ve restarted many many times this past week I’ll take you at your word. 

Assuming quite a bit here...

Not really a stretch. Most reports came in starting Monday and Tuesday which was the day and day after the game was first available. It is an assumption, granted, but not “quite a bit”

During testing this past year we restarted hundreds of times (collectively) with the intent to FORM an opinion on the balance. You seem to already have an opinion and you’re looking at eveidence to FIT your opinion while overlooking the evidence that doesn’t fit. 

 

[boban]

During testing this past year we restarted hundreds of times (collectively) with the intent to FORM an opinion on the balance. You seem to already have an opinion and you’re looking at eveidence to FIT your opinion while overlooking the evidence that doesn’t fit. 

Another assumption there

And given that extensive testing I'm confused why the balance is so messed up (and first patch already was largely about balance).

 

[theFlu]

I'm going to assume an "under NDA", and then just guess they went with increased drop rates for the gating stuff for streamer weekend to provide a "for-sure" success for streamers. I wouldn't even hate them for that, wouldn't be a good look if the hyperactive streamers were bored out of their brains with the intended progression...

Blink twice if you know I'm wrong.

 

[Jost Amman]

Another assumption there

And given that extensive testing I'm confused why the balance is so messed up (and first patch already was largely about balance).

Look, dude, why don't you stop with the bantering and teasing and just spit out what your problem is?

If you think the new system is unbalanced, that's just an opinion based on anecdotal evidence, at most.

Roland has no horse in this race... it's not like if rebalancing things would hurt The Fun Pimps, maybe the opposite.

So, let's start with some facts: how many restarts did you do? What were your settings (loot abundance specifically) in each restart?

That would be a good start to understand if your opinion has some merit, or if it's just your personal point of view on the matter.

Your opinion is respectable, but balance changes can't be based on individual players' opinions.

 

[Balthazod]

What was that mountain of food made of?

Even without recipes you have a few basic recipes you can cook.

You have burnt meat until you find enough cook books to make grilled meat which is dependent on how many cupboards you can loot.  My 1st 2 attempts both had same start point had very few cupboards.  But the mountain of food I had by the time I was lvl 30 on my 3rd attempt was 16 meat stew 15 blueberry pie 9 spaghetti (loot from lvl 5) 7 hot dogs and various canned food. I have 20 meat stew and 15 blueberry cooking but it takes days for that much. 

 

[Roland]

And given that extensive testing I'm confused why the balance is so messed up (and first patch already was largely about balance).

They reduced slightly the number of overall magazines you get from some specific loot containers like mailboxes and removed magazines from being the de facto reward choice by making them only show up as quest rewards part of the time and reducing how many you get. They haven’t touched the boost granted by perks which is what we’ve been talking about.

The balance isn’t all messed up anyway especially if you play the game without intentionally trying to hyper grind magazines. In my opinion, the balance was perfect for normal play and they may adjust things slightly back to where it was eventually because there is no use trying to balance for min/makers.
 

My feeling is to let those kind of players do what they do and let them complain that they’ve wrecked the balance for themselves and just focus on keeping things well balanced for well balanced players. There are some players who like to move past the primitive stage as quickly as possible and balancing vs min/maxers is going to come in the form of gates that will just frustrate everyone. 

 

[Gr.o.m.]

They reduced slightly the number of overall magazines you get from some specific loot containers like mailboxes and removed magazines from being the de facto reward choice by making them only show up as quest rewards part of the time and reducing how many you get. They haven’t touched the boost granted by perks which is what we’ve been talking about.

Sorry Roland but magazines are STILL the de facto reward choince. You get 3 x 2 magzines each worth 300 dukes. Thats 1.800 dukes, I know no quest reward for a level 1 quest worth 1.800 dukes.

 

[BFT2020]

I will take a screenshot of my current playthrough later this evening, but any crafting magazines tied to perks I have invested in are outpacing those I haven't perked into.   And this is based on being in a very small town that only had one crack a book store (lower tier one) that I already looted and haven't gotten for a mission to re-loot.  I have also been splitting my trader rewards between the crafting bundles, mollies, pipe bombs, and ammo.

I think cooking wise, I am now up to Steak and Potatoes (somewhere in that tier).  Though my town is also loaded with a ton of residential T1-T3s and I did perk in Master Chef Level 1 to decrease cooking times.  From a time standpoint, I am approaching Day 14 bloodmoon.

 

[meganoth]

You have burnt meat until you find enough cook books to make grilled meat which is dependent on how many cupboards you can loot.  My 1st 2 attempts both had same start point had very few cupboards.  But the mountain of food I had by the time I was lvl 30 on my 3rd attempt was 16 meat stew 15 blueberry pie 9 spaghetti (loot from lvl 5) 7 hot dogs and various canned food. I have 20 meat stew and 15 blueberry cooking but it takes days for that much. 

Ah okay, I misunderstood you about the mountain of food.

In earlier alphas you would have simply eaten lots of burned meat and drank as much water as needed to offset the water drain. Now water is limited and suddenly burned meat's supposed downside is actually one.

 

[The_Great_Sephiroth]

I prefer the system created in Daggerfall. Learn by doing. My second favorite is the one we have now, learn by reading. The perk system was easily abused by power-levellers and I could have end-game stuff on day three with it.

 

[BFT2020]

In earlier alphas you would have simply eaten lots of burned meat and drank as much water as needed to offset the water drain. Now water is limited and suddenly burned meat's supposed downside is actually one.

It's not the worst though.

Boiled meat uses up one water and only gives you 10 hydration.   Charred meat with boiled water gives you 15 hydration (20 from boiled water and -5 from charred meat).  The only benefit that boiled water has over charred meat is additional HP recovery (15 vs 5).

 

[Cadamier]

I think everyone finds more cooking books than anything else because kitchens are so common. Which isn't too bad because at game start finding cooking magazines is good, but by mid game many players will likely have unlocked all food recipes (which seems too soon) but be far behind with all others magazines

On the other hand weapon boxes or weapon-themed POIs are rather scarce, especially at the start when normal players don't want to tackle tier3 POIs like the shotgun messiah store yet. At the moment that means many players have no way to craft better versions of their chosen weapon in early game and also do not find them commonly in loot as you find more weapon parts for tier 1 weapons than complete pipe weapon

There is space for improvement here.

Definitely room for improvement.  If you look at Kage848's first run b307?  You'll see he's experiencing it too and he did the same with the point distribution.  Then in his 2nd run it seems to have gotten a bit better.  So what ever was done with their release and 'public' is where its at.

I'm also guessing with a little bit of observation is that some magazines will drop no matter what the player picks.  But then gets 'updated' with a weighting system based upon what the player picks.  It seems that what the player picks definitely doesn't drop immediately as I put 2 points into something and have run 2 quests last night and haven't seen them drop yet; albeit - I'm pretty sure I don't have much in that tree (machinegunner?) donno just woke up and gotta go.

No. It’s still mostly random. You will get a boost to the magazine and parts for the matching perk you took but it is not an overwhelming boost. Your results will still vary but you shouldn’t ever find yourself in a playthrough where you never find those things. It’s a safety net. You’ll get different results each time you play and, of course the type of container and location matters as well. 

Okay!  So there seems to be magazines that will drop no matter what, can you give us an indication of what?

 

[bytemage]

If you need to craft to get better at crafting, you'll have to craft a lot of junk before the items become any better. That is no fun.

Fighting skills on the other hand should increase the more you use one kind of weapon. That just feels right.

So, the magazines for crafting are great, and magazines for fighting skills could be a rare bonus, but in general they should improve by using them.

Anyway, I think it works as it is now. There is always room to improve, but I do like it as it is.

 

[RipClaw]

No. It’s still mostly random. You will get a boost to the magazine and parts for the matching perk you took but it is not an overwhelming boost.

My crafting skills say something different. I can clearly distinguish between skills where I put points into the corresponding perks and those without. The only exception is medicine, but that's no surprise since they don't share their loot group with other skill magazines.

 

[Roland]

My crafting skills say something different. I can clearly distinguish between skills where I put points into the corresponding perks and those without. The only exception is medicine, but that's no surprise since they don't share their loot group with other skill magazines.

Over the long term yes but in the short term there will be times when you don't seem to be finding the magazines or parts you perked into. I've seen plenty of people posting their concern that they aren't getting what they perked into and I've experienced it myself. If you are constantly getting everything you need then great.

 

[meganoth]

Definitely room for improvement.  If you look at Kage848's first run b307?  You'll see he's experiencing it too and he did the same with the point distribution.  Then in his 2nd run it seems to have gotten a bit better.  So what ever was done with their release and 'public' is where its at.

I'm also guessing with a little bit of observation is that some magazines will drop no matter what the player picks.  But then gets 'updated' with a weighting system based upon what the player picks. 

Please be careful with prediction you make from a single run or even a few runs. Random IS random and there have been even mathematicians who made serious mistakes when trying to find statistical truths. People are also really really bad at judging events that are random.

You can not really make that determination above without having analyzed a hundred runs at a minimum (or peaked into the XML).

It seems that what the player picks definitely doesn't drop immediately as I put 2 points into something and have run 2 quests last night and haven't seen them drop yet;

This example, you put 2 points into something and 2 quests without a drop? That is statistically so insignificant, it is like you were throwing two dice and when they show 5 and 6 you then conclude that these dice will always show at least 5.

Once you have played that same scenario say 20 times and never got a magazine of that type, then you are ready to voice a suspicion that maybe, just maybe the magazine could be delayed in dropping. 

albeit - I'm pretty sure I don't have much in that tree (machinegunner?) donno just woke up and gotta go.

Okay!  So there seems to be magazines that will drop no matter what, can you give us an indication of what?

 

[outhous]

I put points into, for instance Sledgehammers, and that somehow makes me magically find more sledgehammer magazines? Why? It just seems a little nonsensicle.

Ever notice when you get a new car, that you start seeing that model everywhere. You like sledgehammers therefore you are looking out for Sledgehammer magazines. 

If you really need to say something is nonsensical, how about the idea there is a whole magazine series on Sledgehammers, now that is bizarre.