PC The loot linearity is killing my interest in this game
- Thread starter KiaDragon
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Boidster
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Interesting! What mechanic would you prefer for the game to scale content as the player gains skills/tools/weapons? Or not scale to level at all, maybe? If you've already laid out your ideal system in another thread, just send me there; no need to rehash it here.
RestInPieces
New member
Yes, very. Most of those posts were gone with the old forums. Zone/subzone/POI scaling is something that was being discussed since the beginning, but it wasn't interesting enough back then. Rigid level scaling usually seen in RPG-esque games (rarely any survival) is pretty much the most crude way to keep everything relevant and usually a recipe for repetitiveness and homogenization. It is a lost chance to make a world that breaths on its own, rather than revolves around the player and their "power level".
It's absolutely great that they decided to add stacking area modifiers. It would be even better though imo if they use GS caps (for zones/POIs etc, so that higher GS areas are always kept relevant, but the latest changes would be a necessary step™ if they wanted to do that), or just go for area ranges not affected by your level and bring back a decent randomization offset. There is no need for that lone cabin in the middle of nowhere to track your level progress. Or for that backwoods container to suddenly decide giving you steel items. Everything can stay relevant with a decent item economy and exclusive lootlists - the game's loot variety is astounding. "Scaling" can happen as the player acquires the tools and the ability to progressively handle higher difficulty areas. In other words I prefer environmental gates instead of artificial gates dependent on meta information.
As I see it the formula is mostly necessary for dynamic events like the BM (which atm is a rather flat event and does not vary) and could contain various other shared factors (weather, player behavior, global time w/ a cap etc) with different weights, player scaling included but with a much lesser weight, not the predictability fest we have now.
Boidster
New member
That's an interesting take. I'm not sure I'm on board with the phrasing "rigid level scaling" since even with GS the actual effect is only a small shifting of probabilities. There isn't a bright line between level X and level Y. But nevermind that.
In your scaling system, it would be natural for players either to relocate from area to area as they level up, or accept traveling to interesting areas while perhaps living in the now-easy starting area? So you start in N00btown where the toughest enemy is maybe a Moe and no matter how long you play if you remain in N00btown you're never going to see worse than a Moe. As well, you will only get starter loot. If you move over to Gitgud City, then you get Bikers and Cops and a Wight or two, and better loot. No changes or adaptation to you, strictly based on where you're standing.
And of course let's not even talk about Abattoir Acres...nobody who goes there has ever come back.
For it to work I'd think they would have to somehow make particular sub-zones of biomes have different difficulty levels (and somehow mark them as such). Because you will have people who prefer to live in the forest and also prefer to not drive across the map to find wasteland where they find level-appropriate challenges. And on MP servers I think it might exacerbate the "nobody joins past day 21" problem because all of the higher-level players will have moved on from N00btown and any n00bs joining won't be able to catch up and join parties heading into level-appropriate areas. Or maybe it will help alleviate the problem because said n00bs will have N00btown all to themselves? Maybe higher-GS servers will be sought out, so the little n00bs can have some peace and quiet while the big boys go die elsewhere.
RestInPieces
New member
You don't want to know what happened in Abattoir Acres...
It's not mine, it's nothing original, a lot of games work wonderfully without scaling. Well, when you know what to anticipate in terms of risk and reward because of a meta number, it is rigid in my book. And that knowledge does not come with thousands of hours of gameplay. It takes one, maybe two, playthroughs to become obvious.
AFAIK they are already planning on having stacking modifiers. As Roland said, for example, a SM factory in a desert city could have +50 GS, 15 for the desert, 15 for the city and 20 because it's a high tier POI. Something like that. Which is great. But there are a lot of things that haven't been clarified. Like for example, if a player reaches a max GS stage (when it comes to loot/spawns), will every POI contain the same loot tier/spawns? If so, what will be the point of those modifiers at that point, and if not, will the lower GS areas be capped? And if they are capped, do we need scaling in the first place?
And if we do need scaling up to a point only, modifiers gate people from getting items up to that point and don't really gate them from visiting any area, since they will always be ahead of the player's GS (except when they reach the max GS content), thus the world will be a less homogeneous place, but still homogeneous enough so that players will be visiting everything from the start to the end of their playthrough, turn on loot respawn and just hang out in the same area, or even worse restrain themselves up to a specific level, being encouraged to count their GS to save POIs for later, so that it gets them the optimal loot, not because they acquired the tools to best it, which would be a "natural" environmental gate.
Besides the immersion factor e.g. "the looted rural town suddenly changed its loot table becaused I leveled", it's also a matter of gameplay in the sense that there is little to look forward to - you don't look forward to a goal e.g. acquire the means to finally be able to loot that military complex/skycraper/factory etc at some point. You look forward to level up so that the GS rises to go loot it again for better loot. They actually want to do something similar AFAIK with radiation zones, but it's a drop in the ocean, compared to the rest of the flatness.
The much anticipated event manager as Roland called it and the BM will always need some scaling reference that depends on the player. But even then the formula is rigid. With more factors and variations it can be spiced up and perhaps surprise you even now and then vs the "our GS is x, we will get x".
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Boidster
New member
I would expect that if you play a map long enough to reach maximum GS in the loot tables (currently GS 973) or the spawn tables (GS 5778) then yes all POIs would in effect have the same loot 'cause +50 GS does nothing for you at that point. I see the technical point you are making, but as a practical matter I don't really see the issue. In your geo-only scaling system, why on earth would a GS 900+ player care what was going on back in N00bville anyhow? Those loot containers would be entirely worthless and would have been so for hundreds of levels/days. The difference in the systems is "I'm so high level now that I get top-tier loot wherever I go" vs "I'm so high level now that I don't even bother visiting areas A, B, or C any more". With GS-based scaling, the entire map could, conceivably, remain somewhat interesting for all players.
Okay, but that does not happen. I'm intrigued by the idea of changing 7D2D to be more like, say The Division, where areas have levels and you ought not to go there until you meet the level requirement (though you're always free to try!). But I don't think you need to put up strawmen to then beat down in order to make your case. The accurate way to say that is, "the looted rural town just added .01% probability to certain types of loot while subtracting .01% from other types of loot". The loot scales very gradually, though of course you could avoid the rural town for 100 GS and then go back and have a significantly different loot experience from when you were first there. I don't see that as a huge problem, but I understand your reasoning for why you do think it's a problem. I can respect that you've given it a lot of thought, even if I disagree on some points.
Just a side observation: based on your concern about max-GS looting, I think our different viewpoints stem in part from (what I guess is) our different games' longevity. I have maybe made it as far as day 70 or 100 on a single map, before starting another map. I don't play on public servers, only co-op on my own, or SP. There is no conceivable way I would ever even approach max GS and possibly this is why, to me, an 8K (or larger, thx Nitrogen) map is nearly endlessly entertaining. I simply cannot see every POI and loot every container in the time I have before the next Alpha point release. My guess is that you have played very deep into a single map and see many more end-game issues than I ever will.
It's not though. Everything is based on probabilities. Are you highly likely to see a feral wight in your BMH at GS200? Sure. But is it guaranteed? No. And maybe you get one maybe you get 3. Maybe you get a ton of Cops instead. RNG determines the horde makeup, taken from a pool of GS-appropriate zombies. If they want to add some surprises in there - take out a nest of wights in a POI and surprise your next horde is 50% wights - that does sound neat. Count me in.
RestInPieces
New member
It only takes the point until the "end-game" items start make their appearance in the lootlists. Even if it seems unintuitive to progressively make lower GS places mostly uninteresting, I actually believe it's a good thing to keep shifting the player's focus towards different areas throughout the session. The entire map being interesting (loot and spawn-wise), means that everything is within their reach during their whole playthrough and has roughly the same level of challenge everywhere (that differentiates only with entity groups). While modifiers will achieve variation of content to some degree, players' focus and visiting habits don't really change -- in other words keeping everything interesting for a long time is not always great, because that everything in our case is a list of randomly repeated prefabs.
And when it comes to lower level areas, while definitely out of focus later in the game, it is common and good practice to keep them remotely relevant (e.g. via exclusive lootlists), remotely being key though. Most RPG-esque/survival games that progressively increase their difficulty always sprinkle low level enemies in the players' path or make sure players can measure their progress by the standard of how far they have come since the beginning - e.g. you will still rarely have to gather some materials in the Shallows, while having the best gear in Subnautica, or you will still rarely meet packs of watchers (first enemy) in the highest level areas in Horizon Dawn Zero. Yes, N00bville becoming Badassville will keep the players on their toes, but when that is the case for nearly everywhere it loses impact.
Always happy to discuss and I am in no way saying "this is the best for the game, period" -- just sharing another view. My example was quaint and only meant to get the point across, but I am glad you did get what I am trying to say. It may be gradual but my problem is that it is noticeable.
This was mostly probing to perhaps get some more information about the planned system or maybe probe the degree it was planned, maybe learn if they plan to have caps etc. I play mostly co-op with friends who I've brought into the game and, very rarely, SP. A few playthroughts stop until the point end-game gear starts appearing in the tables, most much earlier as I enjoy the "primitive" stages more.
I am not saying players know beforehand exactly the kind of zombies that will appear -- that would be rather awful. I am saying the game mainly takes your level (and days alive capped by it) into account, making it rather unvaried when it could be spiced up by more things. Like something similar to your example (besides the fact that atm it might be best to avoid throwing a large number of the same enemies at the same time both for visual and gameplay reasons). It could be literally anything plausible (as long as it's cheap in work hours), like e.g. AI variations because of, say, weather state or a pending quest state etc. And while a level reference is also admittedly necessary for the BM, throwing more factors in it can create a sense of urgency, consequence, anticipation etc etc depending on what is added. Maybe the random event manager will do exactly what I am talking about, but considering the mmo-ish back-and-forth quests we have now, I don't have any particular hopes for it.
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This could definitely work. Raiding high tier pois in advanced areas with most enemies glowies is often a zero-sum game for ammo (for a normal player). But this player could go back to gamestage-capped areas to "farm" ammo in POIs using only melee.
AtomicUs5000
New member
fragtzack
New member
Day 3, looted an AK47 in current game. It does happen.
IMHO, folks that don't like the loot system should go install a mod or two that addresses this issue. I found 2 in 5 minutes of searching.
Other good choices to remedy your loot issue are uninstall and go play Diablo* and Borderlands*, games that are focused on loot.
Slaasher
New member
LOL. Why on earth would I have any reason to lie about something like that. Give your head a shake mate.
Worrun
New member
mert ya birds a kin 'lag kid. doon be gassin' lyk. :L
wats ur msn lad al fkin mangle ye
Tmodloader
New member
I believe the pistols, not sure about machine guns unless you just go from gunstore to gunstore looting or trader. You definitely can get AK pretty early.
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pApA^LeGBa
Well-known member
Propably playing with more % XP. Then you find them fast because higher gamestage, even the AK´s. Add in a longer day like 120mins and things look very different. People tend to forget that there is a lot of settings and assume everyone plays like they do,
Morloc
Arch Necromancer
Fantastic loot.... like a +1 Musket!?
It's a game balance/pacing thing. I overcome any immersion-breaking by imagining that these are not so much actual sticks-and-stones constructs I'm finding as much as really, really damaged/dull/broken gear. Equipment sitting in crates (even ones with the lids still nailed on) is going to see water/fire/critter damage in many/most cases. Why does it magically get better later on?...you've learned to ignore piles of crap that are too far gone. You've learned how to make lemonade out of the lemons you do find....a little TLC and that iron ax you found can be sharpened and functioning as an orange iron ax instead of (the equivalent of) a yellow stone ax. You're also more keen-eyed, and may find things you would have missed when you were a neophyte of the apocalypse (e.g. a salvageable hunting knife stuck in layers of desiccated packing foam that you would have discarded...).
Don't take things too literally. The crate you see may be a representation of a pile of crates...scores of them. This is like when you find a town/city, there's only 23 buildings. Of course there are more buildings in a real town, but in the 7d2d world, the developers can't make 12,000 piles of rubble in various degrees of disrepair. What we see is ultimately the "interesting stuff". You end up using your best adventurer-judgement and poking through the what you believe (at the time) is most promising.
I'm a pretty ancient veteran player and I don't despise the current loot system. I like it quite a bit!Scyris said:
In my current game I'm over level 100, and all three of my primary tools are still blue. I only recently upgraded a blue bow (the regular one) I was using. I still have blue armor pieces. It's been a long long time since I dragged a playthrough this many days. I'm actually using electricity and building large structures etc. I didn't like being forced to deal with the horde; but now, I'm okay with it. As 7d2d sees more balance (it swings back and forth), we get scraped up out of our old stagnant comfort zones.
-Morloc
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To be fair, town of that size do actually exist whenever its because of low population density, its in the middle of nowhere or people are leaving the town aspect is quite realistic.
Slaasher
New member
Naw, The people who have a gripe and come to these forums are finding common ground on this issue with others but I think the majority of folks who never visit the forums are perfectly happy with it.
To my understanding, the game has never been more popular as far as player count goes, right now
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