Crater Creator
Community Moderator
Does anyone else feel like the traders are an overly dominant presence in the game?
By and large, if I need something, the trader is the most lucrative place to get it. Weapons, armor, vehicles, defenses, decor, books, consumables, raw materials: the trader will have it. They’ll have more variety on any given day than I’m likely to find in a week of looting POIs. They’ll have higher quality items than I can craft, except for maybe a few things I really specialize in. This has been the case for different builds, including ones that don't specialize in Intellect/Influence perks.
I feel like my character’s life revolves around the traders. Literally, since their location outweighs any other consideration on where to build a base. Does anyone not build really close to a trader, other than those going out of their way to add challenge?
And it’s the only place you’re completely safe, outside of PvP or erratic zombie behavior. And they have free stations to use. And as the quest givers, they have the exclusive power to reset all the loot containers and harvestable blocks in a POI.
I can anticipate some responses to this thread. If you don’t like the traders, you don’t have to use them. You can mod them out of the world pretty easily or just pretend they’re not there. That’s true, but as with other balance concerns, such sentiments dismiss the possibility that the game could be better.
How would I do traders? Like food trucks. In fact, they could use the box truck that was recently added to the
game and already has several variants. In the morning, the truck appears at a semi-random place along one of the roads, with a map marker if you’ve seen that trader before or are close enough. The trader character can stand inside, ready to interact with you, or it can just be a talking truck to save art budget. The traders are presented as itinerants, that make a post-apocalyptic living by roaming the countryside to meet other survivors and swap goods.
The truck is just a truck. You can’t hide inside, and it can be destroyed like any other vehicle. Another truck can take its place tomorrow or however often the trucks change locations, not necessarily in the same spot. The existing trader POIs are kept around, sans trader, for whenever the developers add bandit defense quests, or whatever their plans are for these locations. The working stations and vending machines can stay there, but the POI is destructible like any other. Quests can still be given by traders for now (they're the only choice until other NPCs are added).
Trader loot is more specialized per trader, as is already planned. But they also have less inventory overall - say, a quarter of what they have now. And it’s more closely aligned with your loot stage - not in lock step, but how much better a trader's stock is over what you can loot is at least controlled. This is important for not overshadowing scavenging gameplay, and making it feel less like going to Costco and more like picking over a booth at the flea market. A few items are randomly rolled to be ‘on sale’ for a limited time discounted price. The trader perk (or your reputation with that trader, if the devs get around to that old idea) affects the number of items on sale and the amount of discount. And when viewing all, the trader inventory UI is still sorted by category, e.g. all the clothing inventory first, followed by all the ammo/weapons inventory, etc., instead of whatever it's doing now.
The impact:
By and large, if I need something, the trader is the most lucrative place to get it. Weapons, armor, vehicles, defenses, decor, books, consumables, raw materials: the trader will have it. They’ll have more variety on any given day than I’m likely to find in a week of looting POIs. They’ll have higher quality items than I can craft, except for maybe a few things I really specialize in. This has been the case for different builds, including ones that don't specialize in Intellect/Influence perks.
I feel like my character’s life revolves around the traders. Literally, since their location outweighs any other consideration on where to build a base. Does anyone not build really close to a trader, other than those going out of their way to add challenge?
And it’s the only place you’re completely safe, outside of PvP or erratic zombie behavior. And they have free stations to use. And as the quest givers, they have the exclusive power to reset all the loot containers and harvestable blocks in a POI.
I can anticipate some responses to this thread. If you don’t like the traders, you don’t have to use them. You can mod them out of the world pretty easily or just pretend they’re not there. That’s true, but as with other balance concerns, such sentiments dismiss the possibility that the game could be better.
__________
How would I do traders? Like food trucks. In fact, they could use the box truck that was recently added to the
game and already has several variants. In the morning, the truck appears at a semi-random place along one of the roads, with a map marker if you’ve seen that trader before or are close enough. The trader character can stand inside, ready to interact with you, or it can just be a talking truck to save art budget. The traders are presented as itinerants, that make a post-apocalyptic living by roaming the countryside to meet other survivors and swap goods.
The truck is just a truck. You can’t hide inside, and it can be destroyed like any other vehicle. Another truck can take its place tomorrow or however often the trucks change locations, not necessarily in the same spot. The existing trader POIs are kept around, sans trader, for whenever the developers add bandit defense quests, or whatever their plans are for these locations. The working stations and vending machines can stay there, but the POI is destructible like any other. Quests can still be given by traders for now (they're the only choice until other NPCs are added).
Trader loot is more specialized per trader, as is already planned. But they also have less inventory overall - say, a quarter of what they have now. And it’s more closely aligned with your loot stage - not in lock step, but how much better a trader's stock is over what you can loot is at least controlled. This is important for not overshadowing scavenging gameplay, and making it feel less like going to Costco and more like picking over a booth at the flea market. A few items are randomly rolled to be ‘on sale’ for a limited time discounted price. The trader perk (or your reputation with that trader, if the devs get around to that old idea) affects the number of items on sale and the amount of discount. And when viewing all, the trader inventory UI is still sorted by category, e.g. all the clothing inventory first, followed by all the ammo/weapons inventory, etc., instead of whatever it's doing now.
The impact:
- No more weird, exploitable sections of land that can’t take any damage in this purportedly 100% destructible world.
- No need for the other immersion-breaking bits we have now, i.e. teleporting you away at night and making the trader invulnerable.
- Trader location no longer dictates a handful of best places to build a base.
- More incentive to explore more of the world, since the traders move around to unpredictable locations like air drops (the “get off your ass” philosophy).
- Traders are more of a bonus, and less of a reliable safety net to soften your survival concerns.
- The intended loot progression the devs have worked hard to implement is not so easily bypassed by buying your way to stuff that’s otherwise ‘too good’ for your current character. (I know some people don't like leveled loot in the first place, but if that's the direction the game's going, it should be consistent).
- More and different POIs in a world can be in range for a trader quest over time.
- Expanded opportunities in PvP to reach a trader before others and/or set up an ambush.
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