They are bring a hybrid LBD!

[Roland]

If you take a slow and natural pace at progression, any of the systems are great. If you don’t like to unnaturally jump up and down to get better at jumping up and down, don’t do it. Just jump when needing and appropriate to your situation and you’ll gradually improve. If you don’t like spending points on farming that you earned by killing zombies then don’t do it. Do some farming so some of the actions for the points match what you want to improve and it’ll feel better.

If others are grinding actions to level up their skills in unnatural ways, let them. If they are spending points on perks completely unrelated to their actions, let them.

 

[Riamus]

If you take a slow and natural pace at progression, any of the systems are great. If you don’t like to unnaturally jump up and down to get better at jumping up and down, don’t do it. Just jump when needing and appropriate to your situation and you’ll gradually improve. If you don’t like spending points on farming that you earned by killing zombies then don’t do it. Do some farming so some of the actions for the points match what you want to improve and it’ll feel better.

If others are grinding actions to level up their skills in unnatural ways, let them. If they are spending points on perks completely unrelated to their actions, let them.

The problem with that is when it is common for games to make getting better require a lot of "jumping up and down." If the improvement is minor, like what I was saying between two quality levels, then it doesn't matter if you don't spend time improving it and just let it improve naturally. But if the improvement is significant, such as not being able to craft something until leveling it up so much or not being able to do something like a power attack until you level it up so much or even just not doing double damage if that were the max bonus from improving it or some other thing like that, then it almost becomes necessary to work at improving it instead of letting it happen naturally. That's when it isn't so easy to just "don't do it." If the difference is not so significant, then it's not a problem to level it up naturally and then I wouldn't care if it was added.

I still definitely don't like the idea of LBD for crafting, though. I think the only way I'd consider it being okay for crafting is they made weapons/tools that had set stats instead of variable stats but then as you make more of them, you can improve those stats by a small amount. For example, if maxing your crafting skill for a weapon could improve the damage or accuracy or whatever by 5%. That's enough to make people who want to spend time improving it to do so without making it too much that everyone feels they have to do so or risk too much loss in damage. Diminishing returns would be important regardless where LBD is used so someone doing something 20 times won't be horribly outmatched by someone doing it 100 times (random numbers as an example).

 

[Rotor]

I agree with Roland on this. Mainly because I detest when games get "balanced" for "the grind".

 

[zztong]

I could see a mix of LBD milestones be part of crafting. Consider:

If before you could advance from making a tier 2 stone axe you needed to make at least one tier 1 stone axe. Is that LBD without repetition?

While that's great for stone tools, and interesting for iron and steel tools, you would have to have many more "Tool Parts" drops or be willing to slow down progression.

What I see with Armor crafting currently is I make Primitive Armor 1, I make Assassin Armor 1 (or 2), then I make Assassin Armor 6.

 

[Rotor]

In my simple mindedness, I look at it like this..

You read how to make XYZ, you make it better by trial and error.

I am not talking in real world terms, but anyways it would be a system I can live with.

 

[Kazgrel]

I look forward to this with cautious optimism. This whole semi-RNG learn by looting/reading system is just ■■■. Same with the whole "boosted odds" for weapon parts. 3 of my 4 full playthroughs since 2.x, I've skipped the double barrel shotgun entirely because I nabbed a T1/2 pump shotgun off the trader before I had enough shotgun parts and crafting skill to make even a g1 double barrel. The insane part: 2 of those 3 runs I was running a strength build.

Bonus points if this hybrid system moved us away from the whole attribute system that soft locks you into specific builds/playstyles, but I believe that's beyond the scope of what such a system is intended to alleviate.

Think the most enjoyable progression system I ever played in this game was in Darkness Falls back when the base game was in A19. I've seen/read about other overhauls that do similar. May give them a go once this game is done with major updates.

 

[Jost Amman]

I'll reply without quoting because my reply is directed at most of the comments I've read until now.

Everyone is focusing the attention on finding a technical "solution" to the LBD implementation.
But what I'm saying is that LBD is (for me) the problem itself. It's like changing game type.
In my view LBD is more geared towards simulation games than Action/looter-shooter/Survival-craft games like 7D2D.

If you think about it, most people who like LBD will say "Eh! But LBD it's more realistic!", like if it was the winning argument.

One of the worst aspect of LBD is that it doesn't allow you to put all your "chips" on one bet. When I'm starting a new game I can currently decide to play an (initially) unbalanced character by putting all my starting points in one attribute to be immediately stronger at something. With LBD that wouldn't be possible. Also, progression has NO VARIETY in LBD, and every game looks samey because you need to follow always the same steps and playe the same way to progress. With skill point you have more freedom.

Also, specifically @Roland : I'm all for playing naturally, and I mostly do that in my current play-throughs, but the issue with LBD is that it "locks" you to your actions. As I've stated before, that means that if I need to do something a lot because is necessary for survival, but I don't like it, I'm stuck upgrading and getting better at something I don't like. On the flipside, if I like something that I can't repeat often (for various reasons) I won't be able to level it up and enjoy that type of gameplay.

Bottom line: I don't care how you balance LBD; there's no way I'm gonna like it and it would change the game fundamentally for me.

 

[Jeraal]

...

Bottom line: I don't care how you balance LBD; there's no way I'm gonna like it and it would change the game fundamentally for me.

Funny, that is exactly what happened for me when they removed it.

 

[Jost Amman]

Funny, that is exactly what happened for me when they removed it in the first place.

Yeah, it is funny, because 7D2D was never meant to be an LBD game.

 

[theFlu]

Yeah, it is funny, because 7D2D was never meant to be an LBD game.

Yeah, they just wasted months implementing one .. on a proper drunken binge?

For the "Zero variety" .. that's not necessary, at all. A variety system, like DnD character creation where you lock in one stat to max to make a warrior, could still be implemented. Whatever you pick as your starting focus will become the nature of that run, there's perhaps no easy changing within a run .. but where it replaces crafting magazines, the drip-feed-nature of those can't offer any more variety in the current game, either.

 

[Kazgrel]

It's less that LBD is "more realistic" than it is more organic, though I suppose that's merely arguing semantics. I do believe such a system is easier for most folks to figure out just from playing the game; the more you do something, the better you get at it. I'm not sure how a scenario such as what Jost described in response to Roland's comment concerning playing naturally can't be resolved within LBD. You want to get better with a certain skill? Keep using it. I guess that'll suck in a mid-late game scenario if you want to switch from, say, knives to sledgehammers, but that gives reason to go putzing around in the forest at that point to find lower tier enemies so that your weapon leveling isn't a completely horrific experience. But it's entirely possible the example I sussed out misses the point.

The pitfalls are things like ye ol' Skyrim iron daggers (which was patched a month or so after the game released) or afaik this game's last implementation of LBD (craft a bazillion stone axes, grats you can now make g6 augers) are rough spots, but have largely been solved without needing to resort to the system we currently have. Worth noting I didn't get this game until it was in A17, so if I have the details of it's last LBD wrong, I'm going off what I've seen others post over the years, so my bad there.

Right now I don't think there's a point in stressing about the details of what's to come since all we have to go by is the YT comments left by Joel. Let him cook and hopefully we get a sampling of it before it gets rolled out in it's entirety (even if it's just in another dev stream or such) as to not have another 2.0 scenario. I personally wouldn't expect such a system overhaul until 3.0 or later, but am perfectly fine with being pleasantly surprised in that regard!

 

[Riamus]

I could see a mix of LBD milestones be part of crafting. Consider:

If before you could advance from making a tier 2 stone axe you needed to make at least one tier 1 stone axe. Is that LBD without repetition?

While that's great for stone tools, and interesting for iron and steel tools, you would have to have many more "Tool Parts" drops or be willing to slow down progression.

What I see with Armor crafting currently is I make Primitive Armor 1, I make Assassin Armor 1 (or 2), then I make Assassin Armor 6.

If you only had to make 1, would it really make it worth adding "LBD" at that point? Granted, for me, making 1 is much better than having to make 50 or whatever, but does it offer anything to the game at that point? And for things that require parts, we'd need to be able to find a lot more parts. As it is, it can be a challenge getting enough parts sometimes just to craft tier 3 quality 6 weapons even if you're not having to craft every level between them unless you're putting max points into that specific weapon from the start (I usually focus on my melee weapon before worrying about my ranged weapons). If you got back all your parts when scrapping it instead of only 1, then that would be okay. I just really don't see a good option for LBD in crafting unless it's just a very minor improvement to damage or accuracy or whatever that isn't significant enough to matter if you don't rush it by spamming stuff instead of letting things occur naturally. Diminishing returns can help, as can only allowing one improvement through use within a game hour or a game day or whatever so you can't just spam it as fast as possible.

Right now I don't think there's a point in stressing about the details of what's to come since all we have to go by is the YT comments left by Joel. Let him cook and hopefully we get a sampling of it before it gets rolled out in it's entirety (even if it's just in another dev stream or such) as to not have another 2.0 scenario.

I'd disagree with this. If we give our thoughts and ideas and suggestions before they implement anything, there's a better chance they'll listen to what we think than if we wait until it's implemented and then complain and hope they change it. The latter can work as was seen with storms and biome progression, but it's not as likely to work and also involves a lot of extra time spent changing things that could be better spent finishing the game. It is worth it to give opinions on it while they are still trying to figure out how to implement it.

 

[zztong]

I just really don't see a good option for LBD in crafting unless it's just a very minor improvement to damage or accuracy or whatever that isn't significant enough to matter if you don't rush it by spamming stuff instead of letting things occur naturally.

That's an interesting point. I wonder if there might be other properties of crafted equipment that might be compelling, but without changing the item's combat performance. For instance:

What if crafted equipment had more durability?

What if crafting skill influenced repair outcomes? For instance, maybe repair kits give back a % based on your crafting ability, kind of like vehicles?

And for things that require parts, we'd need to be able to find a lot more parts.

Maybe the number of parts you get back from salvaging an item is greater, or based on your crafting ability. In this way, you get more out of your lower quality weapon.

Or, maybe there's a way to upgrade an item if you're skilled? Oddly enough, this would probably get me to make the middle quality armors if I could incrementally update my armor to higher and higher qualities.

Again, just brainstorming here.

 

[Jost Amman]

That's an interesting point. I wonder if there might be other properties of crafted equipment that might be compelling, but without changing the item's combat performance. For instance:

What if crafted equipment had more durability?

What if crafting skill influenced repair outcomes? For instance, maybe repair kits give back a % based on your crafting ability, kind of like vehicles?



Maybe the number of parts you get back from salvaging an item is greater, or based on your crafting ability. In this way, you get more out of your lower quality weapon.

Or, maybe there's a way to upgrade an item if you're skilled? Oddly enough, this would probably get me to make the middle quality armors if I could incrementally update my armor to higher and higher qualities.

Again, just brainstorming here.

The real question is, what does LBD really add that you can't do with skill points.
Maybe the real solution is that after each level-up you also get one additional skill point in one "area" you've been practicing on.

 

[theFlu]

The real question is, what does LBD really add that you can't do with skill points.

It makes the character feel a little more real, and a little less excel sheet. The organic popups of "hey! you got a little better again" are good dopamine. And it's a work system, where you can choose to put in work, and are rewarded for the work you put in.

 

[Riamus]

That's an interesting point. I wonder if there might be other properties of crafted equipment that might be compelling, but without changing the item's combat performance. For instance:

What if crafted equipment had more durability?

What if crafting skill influenced repair outcomes? For instance, maybe repair kits give back a % based on your crafting ability, kind of like vehicles?



Maybe the number of parts you get back from salvaging an item is greater, or based on your crafting ability. In this way, you get more out of your lower quality weapon.

Or, maybe there's a way to upgrade an item if you're skilled? Oddly enough, this would probably get me to make the middle quality armors if I could incrementally update my armor to higher and higher qualities.

Again, just brainstorming here.

Having it affect non-combat stuff could be okay for weapons, and maybe you can find similar things for non-weapon crafting as well. For something like that, it wouldn't be critical if you didn't spend time spamming stuff so it would be fine to let it improve naturally.

I like the idea of upgrading stuff you craft as I would also be more likely to craft middle quality items that way. As it is now, I rarely craft more than one level within a tier other than for stone weapons or tools. I *might* craft a quality 1 item just to get a quick improvement, but I often wait until I can just jump directly to quality 6. In my current game, I even jumped from Q6 stone spears to Q6 steel spears, though that's not normal. I wasn't finding any iron spears or steel spears in this game for some reason until after I made that jump. And I just hate wasting so many resources to craft a lower quality item. The lack did cause a death, so it obviously is good to upgrade, but it's still just not something I like doing. If we could either get more resources back rather than a single part or if we could upgrade the quality level or even tier, I would definitely be more likely to craft the other levels. But I wouldn't want that locked behind some skill you have to spam to improve. It should be available to everyone automatically if it was added. Perhaps if you improve your skill, you could have a chance of getting an extra level upgrade or saving resources during the crafting/upgrading. That offers benefit without being a "requirement" and means it's fine to let it improve naturally.

The real question is, what does LBD really add that you can't do with skill points.

That's my thought as well. People who ask for LBD want your experience points to be based on the skill being used (maybe not all, but in part). So if you use a weapon, you are getting experience for using the weapon. Yet if you get a general pool of experience points as you do now, you can choose where to spend the perk points you get from leveling up instead of them being locked into specific skills. I like having that choice. What is the real difference between attacking with a weapon 100 times to gain a faster attack versus attacking with a weapon 100 times and leveling up and spending a perk point to improve your attack speed? In both cases, you can improve your skill based on doing something like attacking. But with the current method, I can decide that attack speed isn't what I'm interested in at the moment and I can instead improve something else. With LBD, I don't have any choice in the matter. For whatever reason, LBD supporters aren't willing to accept the abstraction of a general experience pool.

Take something like mining. I hate "wasting" time mining before I get decent tools and at least a couple of points in mining. If I can't craft better tools and improve my mining skills before I start mining, I'll end up hating mining. Instead, the current method lets me gain perk points through other methods like combat and spend them to improve mining, and I can unlock crafting of better tools without needing to mine with stone tools. I definitely prefer that.

 

[theFlu]

For whatever reason, LBD supporters aren't willing to accept the abstraction of a general experience pool.

That's probably the actual problem I have. I'm an optimizer by nature. If I want something, I'll work to get it "asap". If I want a concrete base, but the fastest way to get it is to swim laps in the nearby lake with Swimming-Experience-Boost equipped, I will be swimming laps. Instead of mining rock, turning into cement and concrete and building the base; I'll just swim laps.

So, when you introduce a general pool, you also introduce the "optimal way to play the game" that produces that general resource the fastest. There's just one game anymore, everything else is completely secondary. Sure, "other things" can be made roughly equal, and balanced in terms of difficulty etc, but the best is always the best.

That's the problem of the trader loop as well; it gives you everything, and it's the fastest way to everything.

The alternative, a sim(-lite), would have you encounter different problems, and have different solutions to them. Hunger, thirst, horde base prep, horde ammo prep being the primary problems would "create" secondary problems like "can I raid that place for the guns, or would I spend too much time/ammo/water on it". But since the trader loop fulfills all of that, none of that is ever a question, and there's only one thing to do, ever.

The One True Fastest Thing.

 

[Riamus]

That's probably the actual problem I have. I'm an optimizer by nature. If I want something, I'll work to get it "asap". If I want a concrete base, but the fastest way to get it is to swim laps in the nearby lake with Swimming-Experience-Boost equipped, I will be swimming laps. Instead of mining rock, turning into cement and concrete and building the base; I'll just swim laps.

So, when you introduce a general pool, you also introduce the "optimal way to play the game" that produces that general resource the fastest. There's just one game anymore, everything else is completely secondary. Sure, "other things" can be made roughly equal, and balanced in terms of difficulty etc, but the best is always the best.

That's the problem of the trader loop as well; it gives you everything, and it's the fastest way to everything.

The alternative, a sim(-lite), would have you encounter different problems, and have different solutions to them. Hunger, thirst, horde base prep, horde ammo prep being the primary problems would "create" secondary problems like "can I raid that place for the guns, or would I spend too much time/ammo/water on it". But since the trader loop fulfills all of that, none of that is ever a question, and there's only one thing to do, ever.

The One True Fastest Thing.

I get that, but is LBD really any different? Instead of doing anything you want to improve whatever skills you want, you have a single way to improve each individual skill. Or were you referring to LBD being that way?

 

[theFlu]

Instead of doing anything you want to improve whatever skills you want, you have a single way to improve each individual skill.

I do see that as an improvement; it's a step up in complexity. For a simple example: If you find a great weapon that you suck at using, you now get an organic side-quest to start improving on it. You have to choose between swapping to it entirely and taking more risks, versus carrying that old extra weapon you're decent with. Otherwise I'd just earn the XP on the old weapon of course (or realistically, in the current game, just get a forgetting elixir).

In case of your mining example, you want "at least this and that" before starting. That's sort of a balancing issue - if the early mining is actually horrible, it should be made a little less so. Of course any design wouldn't satisfy everyone, but since we're living in the world of Magical Potion Vendors, I wouldn't mind some mystical bonus beverage to boost you up temporarily to a 20/100 skill. Not a "+20", just a "set to 20". Or heck, "hire an expert advisor", an NPC yelling at you to perform better during the early mines... mildly expensive, but useful. Some more Rekt voicelines, win win

Now, if one likes that thought experiment, the basic scaling could be changed to set the Zero at whatever that imaginary pleasant "20" is, and scale the rest of the progress from there. The potions would be superfluous.

A bit more of a reflective question: Do you think there could be a satisfying "zero", or would you always feel like you need some of the early progress "in advance" wherever the zero is?

 

[warmer]

I do not like any form of LBD that requires you to craft X of something to level up crafting. I also don't like any form of LBD that requires you to use your weapon X times to level up the weapon or to jump up and down X times to level up parkour or any other repetitive task like that.

How do you get better at anything in life?
By repetition and refinement of the action/task.

How did we learn how to do this before we had teachers/manuals?
We keep refining current tech until a new way presented itself. That is literally the entire story of human tech advancement.

Why do we play RPGs?
So we can feel like we are living the life of that character and our actions determine the outcome and our progression.

This is the very essence of what an RPG is. The further we get away from that, the more we move into an arcade style game. Blanket XP you apply to any skill you want, sure it's still an RPG, but it lacks immersion. My personal desire is to play games that provide more immersive experiences so I can get into the mind of the character

What they did previously was give you max XP in that skill the 1st time you craft a specific item and then each like items there after had diminishing returns. What we have now is "magic" magazines. There is very little realistic about them. It would be a lot more realistic if a magazine gave you XP towards a skill vs. I collect 10 and now I can make a workbench.

I have played literally every survival crafting game in the top 30 on Steam and the best most immersive systems are LBD in my opinion. The rest honestly feel like it was too hard to balance, so they went the easy way out.

If Joe wants to craft 100 stone axes so he can make that leap of logic required to learn how to craft an iron one, I feel like that is just as valid as reading 11 Tool Digest magazines. Both aren't truly realistic, but one seems more like "magic" than the other compared to real world immersion.

On a side note. The reason I like Vein is LBD and how incredibly detailed the game is as far as real world mechanics. It's purely the immersion that makes Vein great. Graphically it's way behind 7D2D, but as far as immersion, 7D2D isn't remotely close.