PC Skill/ perk progression renders quality tier 1 - 3 items obsolete

[saltychipmunk]

I mean its a pretty common story.  you are on day  3 or 4 and you open a chest  to find a nice sturdy quality 3 club / baton / bow/ etc..  You announce your find to your buddies.. only to be cut off when they say they are crafting quality 3 versions of everything you just found  anyway because  they  made the low investment of 6 points  into a perk tree. 

Day 4 we had  quality 4 tools , quality 3 ranged weapons and quality 3 melee weapons. And sure I get the idea that having more people to specialize is kinda over powered.   But unless you really REALLY spread out your points  skipping the first 2  quality tiers of pretty much anything is almost comically trivial. 

It just seems odd to be more than half way through the quality progression of things  when the loot out in the world is mostly still throwing around quality 1 trash.

Why not maybe cap out the quality of items you make to  3 and move the rest of the quality  to either book finds or drop only.

 for example:  if you max out miner 69er you can make tier 3 items and then you find a book that further boosts crafting for tools by 1 extra quality level.  This would slow down the progression of quality, add a new chase book to find and give a full two quality tiers to be found only out in the world which would dramatically enlarge the pool of valuable loot to scavenge for the whole game. 

 

[just.dont]

The difference between MP and SP is a huge contributing factor here.

In SP, those quality 3 items are pretty important as you can make one "low investment of 6 points" but you can't make 4 of them at once in the same time frame.

In MP - sure, all it takes is a quick decision on who's going to level what.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

In MP it´s crazy how fast you can have high level wepaons and tools. In SP it´s a totally different story. Honestl no idea how you could find a solution that doesn´t highly disadvantage SP.

I kinda like your idea, but a book is too random. Also i can already hear the crying of the masses if you gate higher quality behind something.

 

[saltychipmunk]

The difference between MP and SP is a huge contributing factor here.

In SP, those quality 3 items are pretty important as you can make one "low investment of 6 points" but you can't make 4 of them at once in the same time frame.

In MP - sure, all it takes is a quick decision on who's going to level what.

I do understand the concept that skill points are more valuable in single player, but I am not talking about large groups here ,  even small groups of 2 or three can really pump out high quality stuff fast. 

heck even going down to just quality 2 items which is effectively a 1 pointer  renders all items you would logically care about  unnecessary at quality 1 . sure you can't have literally everything at quality 2 instantly. but you also do not really care about investing in everything.

you just need a ranged weapon, a melee weapon,  some investment in tools  and some investment the generic stats that boost things like stamina 

In MP it´s crazy how fast you can have high level wepaons and tools. In SP it´s a totally ifferent story. Honestl no idea how you could find a solution that doesn´t highly disadvantage SP.

I kinda like your idea, but a book is too random. Also i can already hear the crying of the masses if you gate higher quality behind something.

oh the solution to single player is simply a skill point per level modifier. if a single person needs to do the job of many, then just give them the ability to do so. 

As for the book , If we were talking about a book for each individual item , sure. but you could go a book per tool type , or a book per stat type. tailoring how many of the books you want out there.  I also do not really see having more of the quality progress being tied to loot rng as bad.  Do you necessarily need the highest quality items?  I would not think so.  And lets be honest the moment you can just craft what you want is the moment you stop feeling the need to go out and find what you want. which is a shame because there are so many cool pois out there now. 

And you could argue its thematic too.  why on earth would an average survivor expect to make anything close to  pre apocalypse quality anything? 

 

[elektrohund]

Crafting is already limited as it is because it can't produce level 6 items, so the issue here mostly regards the early game. The parts required for tools and weapons items are most reliably aquired by scrapping lower level versions, so even if you just crafted a level 3 machine gun, that level 2 is still useful as material for further crafting.

You might find this post my Madmole interesting if you haven't read it already. Also some more here.
 

 

[saltychipmunk]

Thank you for those links 

 

[meganoth]

I do understand the concept that skill points are more valuable in single player, but I am not talking about large groups here ,  even small groups of 2 or three can really pump out high quality stuff fast. 

heck even going down to just quality 2 items which is effectively a 1 pointer  renders all items you would logically care about  unnecessary at quality 1 . sure you can't have literally everything at quality 2 instantly. but you also do not really care about investing in everything.

you just need a ranged weapon, a melee weapon,  some investment in tools  and some investment the generic stats that boost things like stamina 

Seems a bit narrow. What about armor? What about wrenches? Not to say anything about all the utility perks like Daring Adventurer, Master Chef and the Hunter perk that are optional but highly advantageous in the early game.

A quality 2 pick axe is not such a big win, if you compare it to a basic stone axe you will see double the damage for double the stamina cost and the pick axe is slower.

oh the solution to single player is simply a skill point per level modifier. if a single person needs to do the job of many, then just give them the ability to do so. 

That is not possible as there really is no single-player game. You could invite a friend to the game you have started on your local PC at any time, without any adjustment or settings switcheroo.

As for the book , If we were talking about a book for each individual item , sure. but you could go a book per tool type , or a book per stat type. tailoring how many of the books you want out there.  I also do not really see having more of the quality progress being tied to loot rng as bad.  Do you necessarily need the highest quality items?  I would not think so.  And lets be honest the moment you can just craft what you want is the moment you stop feeling the need to go out and find what you want. which is a shame because there are so many cool pois out there now. 

And you could argue its thematic too.  why on earth would an average survivor expect to make anything close to  pre apocalypse quality anything? 

 

[Darklegend222]

I mean its a pretty common story.  you are on day  3 or 4 and you open a chest  to find a nice sturdy quality 3 club / baton / bow/ etc..  You announce your find to your buddies.. only to be cut off when they say they are crafting quality 3 versions of everything you just found  anyway because  they  made the low investment of 6 points  into a perk tree. 

Day 4 we had  quality 4 tools , quality 3 ranged weapons and quality 3 melee weapons. And sure I get the idea that having more people to specialize is kinda over powered.   But unless you really REALLY spread out your points  skipping the first 2  quality tiers of pretty much anything is almost comically trivial. 

It just seems odd to be more than half way through the quality progression of things  when the loot out in the world is mostly still throwing around quality 1 trash.

Why not maybe cap out the quality of items you make to  3 and move the rest of the quality  to either book finds or drop only.

 for example:  if you max out miner 69er you can make tier 3 items and then you find a book that further boosts crafting for tools by 1 extra quality level.  This would slow down the progression of quality, add a new chase book to find and give a full two quality tiers to be found only out in the world which would dramatically enlarge the pool of valuable loot to scavenge for the whole game. 

From my experience, crafting in solo play is much less important than multiplayer. I usually prefer sledgehammers so throwing 3-4 perks into miner69er is no hassle for me.

However in multiplayer, not everyone has to scrounge for a motorcycle or 4x4 through traders or quest rewards. You have your miner get steel, have the person in intellect get the crucible, and have the scavenger find everyone the bottles of acid required.

It's meant to be a team effort. The intellectual makes the crafting stations, the miner gets the ores needed for the intellectual, and the scavenger finds things that the intellectual or miner aren't perked into (lucky looter).

When the ore is looking plentiful and there's downtime, do some exploring and hunting. When the intellectual crafted everything needed then it's best they pull some quests to start their journey of speccing into a 2nd skill tree.

Crafting is perfect the way it is and I would rather we be able to Q6 items than see a nerf of any kind. The miner will need obsene amounts of iron and the intellectual/scavenger need obsene amounts of glue as well. (Seriously, why does a pickaxe require more steel than a MOTORCYCLE).

Edit: I'll go further and say that if you're in solo play and you spend EVERYTHING to get lucky looter to 5 asap, your gonna get so much more than you can dream of. Then there is literally 0 reason to craft.

You'll be drowning in weapons and items, especially with eye kandy and lucky looter goggles.

On my recent day 15 save which I'll be restarting out of boredom, i put only 1 perk into lucky looter and I had to craft all my own tools as I found none.

Back in 19.6 (going to test to A20) having 3-5 perks in lucky looter gave me quality 3-6 items and tools which completely rendered crafting useless. I just couldn't specc fast enough into miner 69er before I found good gear starting with the lucky looter perk.

 

[bloodmoth13]

Thats what happens when you have a team that specializes. In single player 6 points is a heavy investment. in multiplayer you multiply your points by the number of team mates.