Swapping Armor Sets

[meganoth]

Again, I disagree. The only ways to obtain magazines are looting, questing, and buying. There is literally nothing else you can do to gain magazines than that. And by doing those exact things, (in my experience) you will naturally loot better gear than you can craft by doing that.

I can't remember a single instance in version 2.5 where I was able to craft an iron quality 1 weapon or tool before I looted a steel tier weapon or tool.

My experience with v1 and v2 (can not pin my playthroughs to any specific subversion) was similar to Riamus that looting and crafting were mostly well balanced.

I assume this depends a lot on playstyle. Obviously if someone generates more XP than loot compared to other players his loot will be faster at a higher level while he will trail in number of magazines found.

Generating more XP than other players could be through more combat or combat against more difficult enemies (suggesting that playing insane and/or going to higher biomes early will automatically generate more XP than usual), or using any XP bonusses the game offers.

Also something like lucky looter helps to skew the balance in direction of better loot compared to magazine intake (since number of magazines is not improved by lucky looter)

Citation needed. Play the game yourself and prove it, because I call falsehoods on that claim.

I'm not going to engage with vague phrases like "a good mix of activities".

What I do, is I complete quests. Sometimes I pre-loot (fully clear a POI, then start the quest, and fully clear it again). Sometimes I just start the quest and don't pre-loot. At night time, if I've got no quests to complete, I just fully loot POIs until the trader opens again. Naturally I do some inventory management, cooking/crafting, but for the most part I'm fully looting POIs.

In 2.5 I've been taking [Intellect 7 -> Intellect Mastery 2 -> Intellect 8 -> Intellect Mastery 3] as my early skill investment. I'm not sure how many points that is, but maybe it's around 23 (I don't have the game open, just guesstimating). And because Intellect Mastery 2 (25% chance to loot a book in "trash", I think) means I loot a lot of things, I generally start investing into Lucky Looter for the looting speed. Then I start maxing out an armour skill (likely Medium).

Doing this, like I said, my magazine progression can't keep up with my looting, even though I'm literally full-investing into magazine progression with my skills. I will loot better weapons than I can craft, all the way until I have multiple quality 5 steel-tier weapons and I finally unlock the ability to craft a quality 6 steel. Magazine progression lags way behind loot.

I used to just stay in the forest until I had unlocked tier 5 quests, but also recently I followed the Opening Trade Routes quests into different biomes. Results are essentially the same: Magazine progression doesn't keep up. And that's with my intentionally building towards magazine progression.

I would guess the most important reason for why our experience with crafting is so different is that you are playing insane.

Again, disagree. I don't treat farming as a "necessary for survival" thing. Farming is just a fun activity you can do when you're in end-game.

So that means I do consider the Farmer Outfit + Boots as "necessary", because the goal with farming is to make a big farm. That means you plant your seeds, wait for them to grow, harvest your crops, craft them into seeds, and plant the seeds. You do this until you've got many stacks of crops in your storage, and you feel satisfied.

You don't seem to have any understanding about what is enjoyable about farming, so maybe it's best that you don't pretend that you do.

Interesting take on it.
I use farming from early game on to supply me with food. The farming armor is simply a way to waste less time with farming for the same result. Changing armor is done because I hope that the clicks of changing armor + the clicks of farming < clicks of farming for a specific result. And none of those clicks are considered fun

Post automatically merged: Today at 4:10 PM

Yeah, that's potentially the cause. Except I also said this:

I had 5/5 Pummel Pete, which should give me more club magazines (Big Hitters).
That's going 1/5 pummel pete, 3 strength, 2/5 pummel pete, 5 strength, 3/5 pummel pete, 7 strength, 4/5 pummel pete, 9 strength + cigar, 5/5 pummel pete.
So all through those levels (I don't know how many points that is off-hand, but it's over 13), I wasn't looting enough Big Hitters to even craft a level 1 baseball bat. They require what, like 10 magazines to get to 11/100? Didn't happen for me, even having Intellect Mastery 2 & 3 and working up to 5/5 Pummel Pete.

But hey, maybe my last few (~6) playthroughs in 2.5 have all been mysteriously unlucky.

Investing in pummel pete makes you find more big hitter magazines INSTEAD of other magazines. It doesn't change the total number of magazines.

The question now is: Were you just unlucky and still found mostly other magazines? Or was the total number of magazines you found much less than other players?

 

[MiTHMoN]

But this doesn't change the topic of the discussion... armor sets aren't forced on anyone. You can choose to use them if you want the bonus, but the bonus isn't required or even necessary. I don't use them and I can play through without feeling any loss of deficiency. Yes, it's more efficient to swap them, but it certainly isn't required or forced. If people enjoy swapping them, then go for it. If not, then there's no need to do so. Just stop swapping them and you'll be fine.

I can't speak for everyone, and especially not some made up strawman people, but I can speak for me.

I play 7DTD in a way that rewards my knowledge of the game. I know where in a POI loot is likely to be, even if I haven't been in that POI before, because I'm used to how loot is hidden from all the hours I've played. I'm comfortable using any and every tool and weapon in the game (except traps and wires, I never had an interest in that side of things), and I've tested all of the melee options in multiple versions extensively for their strengths and weaknesses as weapons. I know roughly if I'm able to take on a given zombie or animal with my weapons. I've tried lots of things, and I've settled into the patterns of playstyle that appeal to me.

If I play 7DTD, it's a chance for me to use the knowledge (and to some degree, mechanical skill) that I have accrued, and put it to use to "succeed" in the playthrough. I can put restrictions on the playthrough, just for some added fun, but ultimately I'm going to use what's available to me to get the most fun out of my time playing.

I will perform a lot better than a new player, given the same settings and restrictions. I earned my knowledge of the game by putting in the time. I enjoy applying that knowledge while playing.

It's not a new or uncommon thing. Millions of people do this. There are many e-sports games built around this human desire to learn and improve. Rogue-like/rogue-lite games also play on this.

So when 7DTD has mechanics in it that I have knowledge of, and I know how to make use of, the only thing stopping me from using those mechanics is whether or not I find it fun to do so. But fun doesn't come in just one flavour.

There's the fun you get from the journey, like "am I enjoy this, moment to moment?", like watching a cat video. Then there's the fun you get from working towards a goal, like getting every skill to 120 in Runescape [insert normal example here].

What some of these mechanics in 7DTD do, is they meet the criteria of one kind of fun, but not the other, and that's the issue. At least from my understanding.

It doesn't make someone "insane" if they notice this disconnect. But it does seemingly make you ignorant because you don't understand it, nor can you empathize with others about it.

It's bad game design, but what makes it worse in my eyes is the people who are more neurotic or neurospicy or neurodivergent are the ones who will suffer the most, because they notice it the most. It's really not the case that someone can just "choose" to not be bothered by certain mechanics. That's not how life works.


I'll give you a pure and simple mechanic: Jars and cans. You'd drink something, get a jar in your inventory. You'd eat something, get a can in your inventory. They'd stack, and take up only 1 inventory slot each. You could scrap the cans for iron. You could re-use jars for getting murky water.

All it would have taken, would be to have empty jars and empty cans go in their own special place, not in the normal inventory, and everything would have been fine. But what instead we got was this constant struggle of... 1) "do I keep these cans, so they can be melted in the forge", 2) "do I scrap the cans, getting less iron, but having one more free inventory space", 3) "do i just drop the cans, gaining the inventory space, but not having the iron at all".

And then there were brass and lead trophies, iron ores, whatever else they had in those days, all with the same decision of "keep to melt" vs "scrap to save inventory space" vs "drop to save more inventory space".

Whichever choice you made of the 3 options, you lost something. None of the choices felt like the correct choice. It was honestly an awful mechanic. And I'm so glad they removed most of those items.

But we still have paper. Paper is used for basically nothing. Technically you can sell it in stacks of 50 or so, or burn it for 1 second each. Doesn't get used for crafting much. So, just don't pick it up.
But there's a problem... You open a mailbox, a filing cabinet, a bookshelf, and there's a book and there's paper. If you press R to grab all, it's the quickest method, but the paper goes in your inventory. Okay, so drop the paper from your inventory. But it happens again. Okay, different plan: Grab the book manually with the mouse, so we don't also get the paper. Okay, now we're pressing E if the container has paper, R if it has a book, manually mousing if it has both. But if you mix them up even once, you have to go into your inventory to drop the paper again.
So what's the solution? Just give up and sacrifice an inventory space for the paper? Ok.
Sometimes it's just easier to eat the books directly out of the container. But then when you find perk books you want to share with your friend(s) you're playing with... Whoops, now you've got a habit to break if you want to play co-op the way you wanted to.

It just feels like you personally don't understand the struggles some of us go through.

I never chose for lead trophies, brass trophies, raw iron ore, empty cans, paper, blood bags, and whatever other useless items exist, to be added to the game. And it's not up to me whether they're removed from the game or not.

Just like I didn't choose for the Auto Shotty to be stronger than the Pump Shotgun, even though the Pump is much more fun to use. Nor did I choose for the Steel Club to be stronger than the Baseball Bat, even though the Bat is much more fun to use.

The game forces me to choose between the "moment-to-moment" fun (Pump / Bat), and "achieving my goals more efficiently" fun (Auto Shotty / Steel Club). And it sucks, honestly. I didn't consent to this awful ultimatum. I want the power of the steel-tier, but with the vibes of the iron-tier.

7DTD has a lot of these little decisions they force on players. It's great for you that they don't affect you. It's not great for some of us, though.

 

[meganoth]

I consider those "two distinct" problems to be the same problem, really. Swapping is 'encouraged' because the armor bonuses are all over the place usefulness- and balance-wise; there's no reason to use the Nerd chest if you're high or maxed on the crafting skills you care about, anything that buffs non-top-tier weapons (lever action, revolvers, etc) is superfluous by late-game, something that gives a bonus against "undead" is vastly superior to most options if you're on any difficulty that makes zombies take more than one or two hits to deal with.

I would disagree or I don't understand your point:
Assume the balance was so bad that everone would agree that there is only one really useful hand-slot item, only one useful headslot item, .... Then almost nobody would swap.
Instead we have lots of useful armor pieces, but for DIFFERENT activities. Since you often do a different activity for a longer time it is actually beneficial to swap.

Granted, I skimmed most of the messages pertaining to the topic so if this was already mentioned I missed it, but one route that might be interesting to take for armor bonus rework is through changing the set bonuses entirely. If the individual piece bonuses were removed, heavily reworked, or reduced, but the the set bonuses were made stronger/more consequential, it may incentivize sticking to one outfit rather than piecemealing it constantly. Or, maybe players would be upset, feeling that they're being 'punished' for 'efficiency' by having to dedicate five inventory slots to getting a 20% bonus on dumpster-diving for cheeseburgers.

There's one mod I have marked to try sometime that gives set bonuses depending on how much of the set you're wearing, rather than the whole thing, which I've been meaning to give a shot for months but never get around to adding it on a new world for whatever reason.

I agree that most of the set bonusses are too weak, I have never worn a set for the bonus, yet.

 

[7DaysToDieEnjoyer]

I play with the full Preacher set and I don’t feel pressured to constantly swap gear, but I do change it every few days when I really focus on salvaging, mining, or farming. I make up for my lack of investment in resource-gathering perks with the bonuses from the armor, which is really handy. When I’m scrapping, I often forget to change my outfit, but while mining it’s always necessary if I haven’t invested points in it, progress isn’t very fast, so the armor helps a lot.


In the late game, I usually build rather small bases, and the resources I find on pallets are enough for a long time. Sometimes I run hordes on foot if I feel like it or don’t feel like building, but I like helping myself with this armor because I only invest in resource-gathering perks at the very end, after my character is fully developed for combat.


I think I’m somewhere in between constantly swapping and not changing armor at all, which I’d say is a fairly healthy approach. In the late game, I also want to make level 6 sets if I don’t have anything else to spend legendary parts on or nothing else to do, but otherwise I usually just use two or three items at a time the ones that give the most resources.


And of course, I spit on the Nerd armor every time I see it, because it really shouldn’t even be in the game


I like to use the armor whenever I’m mining. When I’m scrapping, I often forget to put it on unless I have level 6 gear. But it’s not like I’m far from my base and suddenly have to go back just to swap outfits. I do it without it if I want. When I’m mining, I want it on all the time, and also for farming. However, crops take 2 days to grow, and my farm isn’t usually very big, so I don’t have much.

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

What some of these mechanics in 7DTD do, is they meet the criteria of one kind of fun, but not the other, and that's the issue. At least from my understanding.

The armors are a mixed bag for sure and by mixed I mean mixed between intended for roleplay and intended for activities you just might be performing at some point. That's why, I think, there are a few combat sets and a few for mining, farming, salvaging, etc. The two purposes are confused.

Which is it? Are they outfits designed for roleplay? (E.g. base Mom, medic, cook as opposed to combat playstyle.) Then design outfits around roleplay. Are they armors for combat? Then design armors for combat. Optimal? Provide clothing for roleplay and/or activities like mining, salvaging, farming, etc. that can be worn together with armor like everyone else. Why mix them together with predictably confusing results? I think that's why the stats are underwhelming as well. The "armors" don't have a distinct purpose.

I think the new "armors" just weren't well thought through like a lot of other things haven't been well thought through before implementation, imo, e.g. how the switch from LBD to LBR completely neglected the wilderness, which is now just empty space to traverse because the means to level aren't there. They're concentrated in the towns and cities. Like how RPG "classes" were implemented and weapon combinations stuck together in those "classes" whether they're the weapons the player might want to use or not. Want to use sledge? Best use of points is shotguns. Otherwise, you're spreading your points thin. That kind of thing. Are you forced to take shotguns with sledge? No. But, of course, that's not the point. Are you making a survival sandbox or a RPG with a survival mode? Please decide.

 

[Old Crow]

What would be a cool feature - armor mannequins. Abiotic Factor has them, you can use them to display your other armor sets, and it makes swapping sets easy.

Post automatically merged: 1 minute ago

I don't have a problem with it. But I don't use the set bonus. The gloves aren't any use to me and the set bonus isn't, so I use all ranger except gloves and usually use the biker gloves for melee damage. The bonuses from other pieces work well for me. But I do agree that the set bonus isn't good. You're not normally using revolvers or lever action rifles in end game. Make it all pistols and rifles and it would be good.

It's just a dull set, like they couldn't think of anything good for it. I do get the theming of the revolver and lever-action bonuses, but you'd never end up using it past "mid-tier." Not sure what they were thinking, pigeonholing the set that badly.

Reworking it into a hunting set would be a better upgrade for it, for those who like set bonuses.