RStarphoenix
Refugee
Things that need to be fixed, cause it is very unbalanced now. Note that my observations/ideas below are based on the default 100% loot abundance.
Living off the Land and Master Chef - 1 point in them, you have a severe overabundance of food and seeds. Water can be looted to the point you almost don't need a Dew Collector for actual water. I started a file w/ 1 point in each and by the end of Day 1 i had 100+ seeds, stacks of canned foods and basic ingredient food and 40+ jars of murky water. From loot. This needs to be toned down a lot.
Speaking of food, unless we grow it or cook it ourselves food needs to give dysentery or something. Dysentery is the weakest debuff in the game cause it is the only truly 100% avoidable one without special protection. Drink murky water? Should be a 30%+ chance to get sick, not 12%.
Ammo, in general - way too much now. Like way way too much. and the basic ammo is outright replaced with higher tier ammo. no point in crafting it anymore at all, unless you're like me and use turrets (since they rely on basic ammo and that disappears from loot pools later on for some reason). Day 7 in the Pine Forest and I have red tip rounds for every gun in the game already.
Biome Progression & Badges - feels meaningless mechanically. The loot caps are so tiny per biome you don't need to leave the Pine Forest at all except for the badges. They give you +80 Lootstage for all of them and that's enough to farm all the parts for Q6 everything. No need to explore otherwise. Example: Pine Forest is 100, Burnt is 120? ... should be Pine Forest is capped at 40-50 including Biome Badge boosts (make loot stage 1 point per 2-3 character levels). Then give each biome a wider gap over the previous biome so it is actually worth moving to explore and loot (like Pine Forest 50, Burnt is 85 minimum).
Books and Magazines - so with things like Sledge Saga and the like, if you spec into the weapon the book series somehow becomes harder to find and you find less of the crafting mags? Also Intellect Mastery makes it so if you hold onto crafting mags and get the perks out of it, you can unlock end-game stuff like the 4x4 in the day 7-14 region where it used to be more like day 28-ish. suppose it is a reward for hard focusing on it but just seems too easy if you loot goblin everything.
About the only thing that feels right is that it is slightly harder to find higher level weapons early on. I'm finding more Q1 and Q2 primitive gears instead of finding a Q3 Ak-47 in a police car on Day 5. Although it shouldn't be that we aren't getting Hunting Knives and 9mm pistols on Day 1 in a toilet, purse or grill either. They aren't hugely overpowered but it's just odd you can find 4 or 5 knives pretty easy just by spamming toilets on Day 1 with just 1 point in Deep Cuts for instance.
Handguns Crafting - never understood why the Magnum is AFTER the SMG-5. Magnum should come after the 9mm Pistol, it's only 6 shots with no way to improve the ammo count and we get .44 ammo in abundance long before we can craft the thing. Sure, we can always buy it but the crafting progression does not match the loot progression here. It's even worse now with the hundreds of rounds of red tip .44 you find in loot.
Questing makes it even worse since that magnifies the opportunities through the double-looting mechanic.
Living off the Land and Master Chef - 1 point in them, you have a severe overabundance of food and seeds. Water can be looted to the point you almost don't need a Dew Collector for actual water. I started a file w/ 1 point in each and by the end of Day 1 i had 100+ seeds, stacks of canned foods and basic ingredient food and 40+ jars of murky water. From loot. This needs to be toned down a lot.
Speaking of food, unless we grow it or cook it ourselves food needs to give dysentery or something. Dysentery is the weakest debuff in the game cause it is the only truly 100% avoidable one without special protection. Drink murky water? Should be a 30%+ chance to get sick, not 12%.
Ammo, in general - way too much now. Like way way too much. and the basic ammo is outright replaced with higher tier ammo. no point in crafting it anymore at all, unless you're like me and use turrets (since they rely on basic ammo and that disappears from loot pools later on for some reason). Day 7 in the Pine Forest and I have red tip rounds for every gun in the game already.
Biome Progression & Badges - feels meaningless mechanically. The loot caps are so tiny per biome you don't need to leave the Pine Forest at all except for the badges. They give you +80 Lootstage for all of them and that's enough to farm all the parts for Q6 everything. No need to explore otherwise. Example: Pine Forest is 100, Burnt is 120? ... should be Pine Forest is capped at 40-50 including Biome Badge boosts (make loot stage 1 point per 2-3 character levels). Then give each biome a wider gap over the previous biome so it is actually worth moving to explore and loot (like Pine Forest 50, Burnt is 85 minimum).
Books and Magazines - so with things like Sledge Saga and the like, if you spec into the weapon the book series somehow becomes harder to find and you find less of the crafting mags? Also Intellect Mastery makes it so if you hold onto crafting mags and get the perks out of it, you can unlock end-game stuff like the 4x4 in the day 7-14 region where it used to be more like day 28-ish. suppose it is a reward for hard focusing on it but just seems too easy if you loot goblin everything.
About the only thing that feels right is that it is slightly harder to find higher level weapons early on. I'm finding more Q1 and Q2 primitive gears instead of finding a Q3 Ak-47 in a police car on Day 5. Although it shouldn't be that we aren't getting Hunting Knives and 9mm pistols on Day 1 in a toilet, purse or grill either. They aren't hugely overpowered but it's just odd you can find 4 or 5 knives pretty easy just by spamming toilets on Day 1 with just 1 point in Deep Cuts for instance.
Handguns Crafting - never understood why the Magnum is AFTER the SMG-5. Magnum should come after the 9mm Pistol, it's only 6 shots with no way to improve the ammo count and we get .44 ammo in abundance long before we can craft the thing. Sure, we can always buy it but the crafting progression does not match the loot progression here. It's even worse now with the hundreds of rounds of red tip .44 you find in loot.
Questing makes it even worse since that magnifies the opportunities through the double-looting mechanic.
