PC Problems with A17.2 that aren't on the 'known issues' list of the patch notes
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madmole
New member
Please don't use misleading topics to get people to read your fake bug report which is just your opinionated wish list.
Its all there in a16, go for it. We're not adding any of that stuff, except over 100 new books are being added to A18.
Edit: You can classify some of these books as LBD, you go out find them, read them and gain a perk (improve your ability at the topic). There just isn't any way we can find a way to add LBD that isn't grinding and rewarding obnoxious behavior.
Its all there in a16, go for it. We're not adding any of that stuff, except over 100 new books are being added to A18.
Edit: You can classify some of these books as LBD, you go out find them, read them and gain a perk (improve your ability at the topic). There just isn't any way we can find a way to add LBD that isn't grinding and rewarding obnoxious behavior.
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madmole
New member
You mean LBG? Learn By Grinding? Please show me a design of LBD that isn't grinding and forcing players into artificial hoop jumping to be the best as fast as possible versus just enjoying the game.
Skyrim was OK at it, but once you reach 100 at your favorite hoop jumping you were not gaining any more skill doing what you LOVE to do, say chopping heads off with one handed swords. To level up, I have to turn to stuff my character isn't interested in, like conjuration to level any more.
madmole
New member
The only LBD system I can think of that might work is raising attributes organically, instead of buying them with perks. But then you are grinding those attributes to unlock the perks you want. Is that really what you think is fun?
Our goal of the perk system was to not have random rolls blocking players from major portions of the game, like the minibike book of the past blocking players from having a vehicle, and to also let them play naturally. Just craft what you need, not 1000 stone axes to max out your crafting ability while you AFK. How is that fun? I think we accomplished that, but people keep clinging to the old system, why? So you can min max in one day and be OP? Where is the fun or challenge with it? I and pretty much WE (TFP) do not understand the desire for LBD or can think of any case where it would make the game more fun, or a way to implement it without grinding or doing unnatural things to maximize your characters abilities super fast.
Our goal of the perk system was to not have random rolls blocking players from major portions of the game, like the minibike book of the past blocking players from having a vehicle, and to also let them play naturally. Just craft what you need, not 1000 stone axes to max out your crafting ability while you AFK. How is that fun? I think we accomplished that, but people keep clinging to the old system, why? So you can min max in one day and be OP? Where is the fun or challenge with it? I and pretty much WE (TFP) do not understand the desire for LBD or can think of any case where it would make the game more fun, or a way to implement it without grinding or doing unnatural things to maximize your characters abilities super fast.
Noted, but as long as EXP exists in this game in any form (I personally am starting to see the appeal of no EXP in the game at all, kind of like how Roland has stated he prefers), there will ALWAYS be a grind. Of some sort or another.
It then boils down to personal preference, what kind of grind does the player find the most fun, and the least annoying?
Having one exp bar certainly reduces the unique # of things needed to grind, but does this mean more fun? Maybe yes, maybe no, depending on how it is implemented & personal opinion.
In my personal opinion it tends to mean less fun to have less unique # of things needed to do, but I know some may disagree. That said, with more unique # of things needed to grind, some work needs to be done to make it less annoying (at least for some players).
I agree crafting 1000 stone axes is silly. That's where you can have "soft gating" where lower tier items give less and less crafting exp to promote people to progress to higher tier stuff. Just one example. Sure you could craft wood frames all day, but making a concrete base & making concrete frames would level you up significantly faster. You'll STILL not remove the silly players who grind low level stuff but again, people will be people, eh?
I think back to old school RPG's. I remember reading some guy who I kid you not grinded to level 99 in the starter area in FF7 (You know, the first scene of the game). Why??? Because people will be people and you ultimately can't stop people from doing crazy things lol.
You'll never eliminate min-maxers in any system, A17 or A16 or otherwise. One way to mitigate that though, is to remove how silly it is to grind some skills (Like crafting) or (like armor skills). Even if you do that, there WILL still be min-maxers, but at least for the average joe, they feel like they are progressing without "going out of their way" to grind which is the goal, no? Some hardcore people will still "feel like they need to grind X skill" for whatever reason, but you can't control what people wanna do 100% of the time. The only way you can reasonably remove ALL forms of min-maxing (virtually), is to do away with EXP entirely. Another random idea I had, if you REALLY want to gate players from just doing stone axes all day, is actually eventually taper off the exp you get to zero. Think how FFXI and many MMO's handle exp to prevent people from grinding newbie zone monsters to max level. You get MORE exp if the enemy is high level relative to you, and less and less as you reach its level and higher until eventually that monster gives ZERO exp. This promotes exploration and forces people to progress.
Also you can reduce the problem of RNG-gating by once again turning it more into a "soft gate". For example, its still RNG, but you can increase the probability of getting something either by a function of days survived or biome that you're in or the POI you're in or a function of all three.
It then boils down to personal preference, what kind of grind does the player find the most fun, and the least annoying?
Having one exp bar certainly reduces the unique # of things needed to grind, but does this mean more fun? Maybe yes, maybe no, depending on how it is implemented & personal opinion.
In my personal opinion it tends to mean less fun to have less unique # of things needed to do, but I know some may disagree. That said, with more unique # of things needed to grind, some work needs to be done to make it less annoying (at least for some players).
I agree crafting 1000 stone axes is silly. That's where you can have "soft gating" where lower tier items give less and less crafting exp to promote people to progress to higher tier stuff. Just one example. Sure you could craft wood frames all day, but making a concrete base & making concrete frames would level you up significantly faster. You'll STILL not remove the silly players who grind low level stuff but again, people will be people, eh?
I think back to old school RPG's. I remember reading some guy who I kid you not grinded to level 99 in the starter area in FF7 (You know, the first scene of the game). Why??? Because people will be people and you ultimately can't stop people from doing crazy things lol.
You'll never eliminate min-maxers in any system, A17 or A16 or otherwise. One way to mitigate that though, is to remove how silly it is to grind some skills (Like crafting) or (like armor skills). Even if you do that, there WILL still be min-maxers, but at least for the average joe, they feel like they are progressing without "going out of their way" to grind which is the goal, no? Some hardcore people will still "feel like they need to grind X skill" for whatever reason, but you can't control what people wanna do 100% of the time. The only way you can reasonably remove ALL forms of min-maxing (virtually), is to do away with EXP entirely. Another random idea I had, if you REALLY want to gate players from just doing stone axes all day, is actually eventually taper off the exp you get to zero. Think how FFXI and many MMO's handle exp to prevent people from grinding newbie zone monsters to max level. You get MORE exp if the enemy is high level relative to you, and less and less as you reach its level and higher until eventually that monster gives ZERO exp. This promotes exploration and forces people to progress.
Also you can reduce the problem of RNG-gating by once again turning it more into a "soft gate". For example, its still RNG, but you can increase the probability of getting something either by a function of days survived or biome that you're in or the POI you're in or a function of all three.
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RestInPieces
New member
-At least from what I've seen, most complaints about unpleasant grinding have been during A17. Both systems compel the player to level (as they should, A17 even more so due to recipe perks), but I think the main difference of LBG and A17 and the reason for these "grind complaints", was that LBG compelled the players to do various activities to level, while the current state of A17, having unbalanced xp sources, compels the players to do a single specific activity in order to level (namely zombie kills in early game and mining at late game). So many players view it as more linear atm.
-You could still offer xp for an LBG activity no matter if it's maxed.
-You are right about the artificial hoops of LBG (I gather you mean abusing materials to level, standing on cactuses, spam crafting etc), but weren't there viable ways to overcome them by diminishing returns or "equal exchange"? Would a player be compelled to stand on cactuses if death matters/medicine is valuable like it is now, at least compared to A16? Couldn't recipe-specific limits or diminishing returns, that could also be randomized by time, be introduced in crafting to prevent spamming?
Skyrim was terrible on vanilla. But it was salvagable. Try Requiem or the TSR mods. They have done a great job at creating a rewarding progression curve with no such problems. Was just a matter of tuning.
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PoppaTot
New member
I really am being non-combative here, I hope it comes across that way as well. But I just don't understand why you, and most people cling to things that were inherently bad in LBD and claim the system is flawed because of it. The spam crafting was not in A16.4, you (TFP) fixed that. Other activities that people chose to do, such as standing on a cactus could have been fixed as well instead of scrapping the complete system. You guys always talk about min/max, OP day 1, blah blah.... I have never wanted to, nor min/maxed in A16.4. Never had to. It played organically. I also, never "stood on a cactus" because as you put it (and I agree), that's not fun. With the current perk system I still have fun, just not as much. I read some of the change you're thinking of and think that will help. Because as of right now, after 15-20 restarts, I really am feeling the "this game is the same every time" blues. That could be a personal flaw of mine also. I just don't find it fun to have to go down the same skill tree every time to unlock things. Nothing is random anymore, nothing is unique. Everything is an absolute certainty that I will have it via crafting because the linear perk system. Sorry for ranting, it just seems that every time this is brought up by anyone it boils down to TFP and others saying "cactus, spam craft, blah blah".
So many people have given sincere and constructive feedback, solutions to fix LBD to eliminate that BS. Just seems that you guys (TFP) are unwilling to participate in that conversation. Which is your right to not engage, it is your game. I totally understand that. But continuously saying that you see no way to fix LBD and then poking fun at those that like it is just poor form. Sorry for the rant. But, you could put an end to all the gripes by simply stating "LBD will never come back, drop it" instead of insinuating that and beating around the bush. Otherwise it will continue to give those of us that like it false hope.
This. Really it boils down to correct tuning so that the average player can play organically and get the skills he needs for the most part with little to no need for "extra grinding".
Also I made note in another post of mine, that you can even address the issue of someone wanting to switch from being a master of one skill (Let's say knives) and now wants to play with guns but doesn't wanna go through the hassle of starting from level 0. This address's the following point from MM
The one issue with quoting other games is that it implies that system must be copied verbatim (It doesn't have to be).
-> Keep the total exp that A16 still had, letting you spend points into skills you hadn't leveld yet without having to "Learn by grinding" as you put it. Continue to award player exp even when using skills which are now at level 100.
-> Increase # of levels in a skill obtainable from SP's. In A16, you only got 1 level in a skill per SP. This did feel underwhelming to me. Increase it to 3,5... something noticeably more... and now the player will feel more opportunities to more easily level up skills they haven't focused on. This would turn into a hybrid game where "LBD where you wanna LBD" (your favorite go-to skills), and "Use SP's where you don't wanna LBD". Again A16 already did this... But I admit it was not perfect and could be improved.
OR
Another idea ---- Make it so the lower your skill in something is, the cheaper it is to increase the level via SP's. This would mean maybe you can quite readily get something to 50/100 via spending SP's, but you may be better served to LBD the rest of the levels if you don't wanna waste too many SP on it.
Level 1-10: 2 skillpoint
Level 11-20: 3 skillpoint
Level 21-30: 4 skillpoint
...
ETC... you get the picture. Better still, have it so rather than raw level 11-20, 21-30 whatever, it would only cost the 2,3,4 SP, whatever, via the first X levels you BUY rather than the first X levels you GET (that way if you LBD the first 50, and SP the rest, it wouldn't be too bad to buy). this would make people have to choose - do I want instant gratification, or would I rather wait and get more for my money? or actually, better still even than that - have that completely separate from how much xp is needed to level the sklll using lbd - then no worries whether you spend pts now or later in terms of grind time.
Basically my vision of an ideal implementation would have the average player playing a specialized role, organically leveling up skills he uses a lot via LBD, and then later spending SP's on other things he opted not to do much of and thus didn't LBD. Which btw, is this not basically what TFP is going for in the first place (specialization that is)?
Finally there is one big flaw (IMO) in A16's implementation of LBD I have not addressed and I will now do so.
What about the case where you spend SP on something, later to use it a lot and feel like you "wasted SP" when you could have just done LBD?
EXAMPLE:
You spent 30 SP on a skill to get it to level 50. Whatever, the # isn't important
Now you level up to 100 on the skill, and continue to use it such that now with how much you used it you would be level 100 EVEN without having spent SP. You have buyer's regret now, wish you hadn't wasted the points.
One interesting thing might be to literally "Reward" the player extra SP to compensate for this. You now got your 30 SP back, and now you can re-allocate them elsewhere.
This would INCREASE FREEDOM EVEN MORE. This would encourage experimentation, rather than people over-thinking and over-analyzing the "min-max" setup which you yourself have spoken out against. Not to toot my own horn, but I think this is a good idea, and definitely lets people just play the game rather than worry oh am I gonna run out of SP to spend and screw myself?? This can definitely happen in A16 and "losing skill points forever" is NOT a good idea for a game where skill points are already in limited quantity.
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ZombieHorde
New member
Hi Madmole. I agree that grinding is a horrible way to go about it, but a game that offers the ability to cater for those that do and don't have that patience would be ideal.
Now we have electricity, barter and rewards, the game is getting ideal to be able to do just that. So why not use these methods a bit smarter to solve these problems?
EITHER get the player to choose a specific path to get a particular objective OR if they get that objective through scavenging, for example, then they need to do another method for the next objective. Game settings can turn on /off some methods.
A few examples below list some multiple game mechanics for a) getting a set of wheels, b) harvesting stone, c) getting that special, enchanted axe that will even make you a coffee.
Like INT? For cars/bikes, very high intelligence unlocks being able to build things but costs a lot in intelligence. If a grinding technique can be used (gathering stones), then use electricity as a means to create a fabrication technique.
Barter is obvious. For a car, it obviously needs to be a very high price.
Search/scavenge. Everything is self explanatory here, whether you're looking for an object or a specialist NPC to enchant your sword. Exploration is key.
Earn it as a reward. So either I win $1b or I get a car.
Gate through a special finding of book, map or instructions. This can unlock a hidden treasure type cache. So bags of stones, a car, or weapons.
Learn through an NPC in certain dialogue. Can be used similarly to the last mechanic or unlock a specific perk so making a car from scratch doesn't cost so much in INT.
Grinding. Maybe gate it with perks to grind more in one day, otherwise lock it at x amount per day otherwise RSI and mental health take a hit (seen as damage or fatigue). Alternatively, you have to be at a bench (or radius) to craft more. Grinding a car is hard because a car needs special materials (bonus collection grinding) and needs to be of a specific 'health'. So a car won't accept a poorly crafted engine.
If the game cycles through these options to get them, then you really are catering to everyone.
Hopefully this makes sense and gives you some ideas. I'm not sure how coherent I am because my wife has been about to give birth for the entire night now and I'm exhausted.
Now we have electricity, barter and rewards, the game is getting ideal to be able to do just that. So why not use these methods a bit smarter to solve these problems?
EITHER get the player to choose a specific path to get a particular objective OR if they get that objective through scavenging, for example, then they need to do another method for the next objective. Game settings can turn on /off some methods.
A few examples below list some multiple game mechanics for a) getting a set of wheels, b) harvesting stone, c) getting that special, enchanted axe that will even make you a coffee.
Like INT? For cars/bikes, very high intelligence unlocks being able to build things but costs a lot in intelligence. If a grinding technique can be used (gathering stones), then use electricity as a means to create a fabrication technique.
Barter is obvious. For a car, it obviously needs to be a very high price.
Search/scavenge. Everything is self explanatory here, whether you're looking for an object or a specialist NPC to enchant your sword. Exploration is key.
Earn it as a reward. So either I win $1b or I get a car.
Gate through a special finding of book, map or instructions. This can unlock a hidden treasure type cache. So bags of stones, a car, or weapons.
Learn through an NPC in certain dialogue. Can be used similarly to the last mechanic or unlock a specific perk so making a car from scratch doesn't cost so much in INT.
Grinding. Maybe gate it with perks to grind more in one day, otherwise lock it at x amount per day otherwise RSI and mental health take a hit (seen as damage or fatigue). Alternatively, you have to be at a bench (or radius) to craft more. Grinding a car is hard because a car needs special materials (bonus collection grinding) and needs to be of a specific 'health'. So a car won't accept a poorly crafted engine.
If the game cycles through these options to get them, then you really are catering to everyone.
Hopefully this makes sense and gives you some ideas. I'm not sure how coherent I am because my wife has been about to give birth for the entire night now and I'm exhausted.
Dimpy
New member
I'd say that the appeal of LBD is not strictly gameplay related. To those who don't try to game the system, it's a nice aesthetic touch that makes the game feel more organic. Even if people can't come up with a logical reason why LBD would improve the progression system, they'll still be asking for it.
LBD could work if it applied to very specific categories. For example, if you had a tree-chopping skill that only leveled up by chopping trees. The only reason you'd want to level it up is if you wanted to get a lot of wood, but since chopping down trees gives you wood anyway, you're never really grinding for levels, just resource harvesting.
OzHawkeye
Community Moderator
The logic failure you're experiencing there is your assumption about why that percentage of players voted the way they did. "Is the overall rating post A17 lower than post A16?" is an objective question that can be objectively answered, but you have absolutely no idea (nor do I) why those players voted the way they did, and to assume that their grievances match your own, is why those claiming to speak for this "silent majority" critically undermine their own arguments.
Ornias
New member
LBD added a little gratification every time a skill leveled. Some of my best games were ones where it took me 30 days to find the minibike book. The current system still encourages grinding, but now its just grinding mobs. Currently I know exactly when I will get the minibike, jeep, forge etc. It is just a direct XP path every.....single.....time.
RestInPieces
New member
Could see this coming
madmole
New member
Lets just say that we'd only entertain LBD at an easy to implement way that makes sense. We're keeping the perk trees and attributes. To me crafting quality could be done LBD. Maybe attributes could rise from LBD but then they block you not the levels and people will cry they cannot raise those fast enough or specialize fast enough. It keeps rolling back to a grind. One can say you grind now to get XP then buy what you want, but if attributes are raised from LBD you will be grinding to get those up so you can spend the perk points you have burning a hole in your pocket.
I thought about LBD crafting, where you craft each rank but that sucks who wants to craft a brown gyrocopter when you can finally make one?
Right now I had an idea where you find schematics for stuff and each one you read raises your crafting skill of that particular item by 1 rank. So you find 1 and can craft it, (brown) and read 4 more and your crafting blue. Not LBD, but it would decouple crafting from INT and players might see more ranges of the crafts right now its always brown and orange stone axes, yellow to green picks and blue/pink steel or something like that because of the INT requirements. Not that it matters much because damage is controlled by mods but it does bother me to not see the full gamut of color ranges.
SnowDog1942
Navezgane's Perv
While i generally like the direction of A17 perks i would love an injection of RNG, especially with vehicles. Schematics for vehicles would be great. Better vehicle schematics could be more rare and maybe require more int?? I dont care if i ever find one, the point is to survive with the hand you've been dealt. Putting a point in a perk at the proper just feels weird in this case. What percent of single players would ignore that perk? .My guess is close to 0.