PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

Roland said:
I'd play that. We could take it a step further and make a craftable lock pick tool kit. The recipe could be a repair kit, oil, and lockpicks. Once you have that you can open any lock. At brown level it takes 1 minute up to purple level it opens in 1 second. Each use could degrade it like any tool and the cost to repair would be....lockpicks. Like your idea, nothing breaks during the process. Your toolkit tier would control the wait time but the outcome would be guaranteed. The Jail Breaker drink could cut the timer in half for whatever tier toolkit you were using. No minigame either.

EDIT: Would need an additional magazine title to support it which would please some and disgust others..haha
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I could see that. As your lock picking magazine knowledge went up you could assemble better kits as you would be learning about new tools and techniques. As you invested in the lock picking perk you would get faster and your kit would degrade slower.

That might not be enough to make the perks tempting so this next thought is just spitballing... perhaps the lock picking perk could add an item from a lock picking bonus loot list that got better with each perk level. Just add the bonus item to the inventory of whatever got opened.

If you want a PvP angle, higher level lock picking magazine knowledge or lock picking perks could make anything you locked harder/slower to pick.

I like the Jail Breaker integration.

Personally, I'm cool with there just being a timer as I like to use that time to take a drink or stretch my legs, but I would point out a parallel mini-game for those who want to fiddle with something still works. Implement both; a player could choose either. You just trade timer speed for how subtle you have to be when playing the mini-game. The purple top tier kit might just mean any old face-roll on the keyboard succeeds, lol.

As far as depicting a kit, there are all sorts of thieves' tools, pick shapes, rakes, bumps, shims, magnets, lishi tools, tension tool thicknesses, at least two kinds of J-tool, tools for loiding, the under-door tool, etc. I would point out none of that helps against a combination lock like on the safes in the game. I've heard of a tool that brute forces combination locks but that's not going to be an apocalypse tool. I suppose you could depict a stethoscope. ■■■■ty electronic locks will sometimes open with a magnet... you pull on an internal relay. Don't ask me to demonstrate I'm pretty good with a traveler's hook, decent with a J-Tool, but that's about it.
 
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Grandpa Minion said:
As I mentioned earlier, batons are utilized for crowd control and less lethal force in the real world.
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Apparently we live in different worlds. A shock to the nerve endings with a stun gun causes instant death. A person has enough points on the body where the nerve endings are close to the skin and a shock to these points kills. Moreover, the power of even the weakest stun guns is excessive for this.
 
Roland said:
I'd play that. We could take it a step further and make a craftable lock pick tool kit. The recipe could be a repair kit, oil, and lockpicks. Once you have that you can open any lock. At brown level it takes 1 minute up to purple level it opens in 1 second. Each use could degrade it like any tool and the cost to repair would be....lockpicks. Like your idea, nothing breaks during the process. Your toolkit tier would control the wait time but the outcome would be guaranteed. The Jail Breaker drink could cut the timer in half for whatever tier toolkit you were using. No minigame either.

EDIT: Would need an additional magazine title to support it which would please some and disgust others..haha
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Alright, that doesn't sound bad, but adds some balance problems (which perk, which attribute, what exactly is a toolkit, is it a general-based tool?, is it a repair tool? is it embedded in lockpicks? then they shall be tied to an attribute! and on and on we go).

The simplest thing is to just use existing systems+an animation. Opening expends lockpicks depending on the lock, and said animation attracts brain-eating entities. That's how I would do it but you ARE absolutely right that they will make a magazine for it if it gets some love. And of course, please, don't let Snowdog name it.
 
Roland said:
I'd play that. We could take it a step further and make a craftable lock pick tool kit. The recipe could be a repair kit, oil, and lockpicks. Once you have that you can open any lock. At brown level it takes 1 minute up to purple level it opens in 1 second. Each use could degrade it like any tool and the cost to repair would be....lockpicks. Like your idea, nothing breaks during the process. Your toolkit tier would control the wait time but the outcome would be guaranteed. The Jail Breaker drink could cut the timer in half for whatever tier toolkit you were using. No minigame either.

EDIT: Would need an additional magazine title to support it which would please some and disgust others..haha
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You could, but I'd be happy with it being in the advanced engineering magazine list, they have you making lockpicks already with that magazine.
 
HammerDano said:
maybe replace lock picks with keys?
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An excellent idea that was AFAIK already discussed in the forum and considered by the devs once, with keys in loot locations or as zombie loot. For one reason or another they didn't do it. Maybe because hiding the keys in loot boxes would have made finding the keys trivial, and creating new better hidden key locations would mean having to edit all ~1000 POIs again. And zombies as key carrier could despawn again and make finding the keys impossible.

Additional problem now would be that the lockpick perk would have to be replaced by something else.
 
Blake_ said:
Alright, that doesn't sound bad, but adds some balance problems (which perk, which attribute, what exactly is a toolkit, is it a general-based tool?, is it a repair tool? is it embedded in lockpicks? then they shall be tied to an attribute! and on and on we go).
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You could look at it as a collection of lock picks or you could look at it as a collection of thieves' tools that includes more than picks.

I don't understand your repair tool question. I would add that while steel picks don't break, other thieves' tools do. The under-door tool, for instance, breaks a lot.

I could see lockpicking being tied to perception. I don't recall where it appears now.
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Javabean867 said:
You could, but I'd be happy with it being in the advanced engineering magazine list, they have you making lockpicks already with that magazine.
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Ah, interesting.
 
Honestly, I'm not sure reinventing the lockpick mechanic is worth the dev time it would take to implement a much more robust design. I do like this kit idea, and I would absolutely install a mod implementation of it.

I think it would be better to just tweak the given system, and that system not by a lot. I would focus on keeping the general approach the same, while updating the lockpick perk to provide a benefit that players are more likely to recognize. Specifically, I would fix the perks:
  • First point: slight reduction in chance to break a lockpick, first lockpick failure on each attempt slows the timer instead of breaking a pick.
  • Second point: additional slight reduction in chance to slow\break a pick.
  • Third point: overall increase of lockpick speed.
  • Fourth point: second lockpick failure on each attempt slows the timer instead of breaking a pick.
  • Fifth point: locking speed is even faster. After breaking a lockpick the timer picks up exactly where you left off (never again get locked into a 4 second groundhog day).
Human beings are notoriously bad at perceiving incremental changes in probability. It is a fact that if you perk into lockpicking, even though it can feel like there is no difference, that you just stop having to replace your lockpicks. So it isn't even that the perks are bad. It's just that the experience of lockpicking in this game feels punitive, and spending points in the perks don't feel like they are well spent. Having the perks provide a benefit that the player is able to easily observe, while also mitigating the negative lockpicking experience, would do wonders I think.
 
Sapient6 said:
Honestly, I'm not sure reinventing the lockpick mechanic is worth the dev time it would take to implement a much more robust design. I do like this kit idea, and I would absolutely install a mod implementation of it.

I think it would be better to just tweak the given system, and that system not by a lot. I would focus on keeping the general approach the same, while updating the lockpick perk to provide a benefit that players are more likely to recognize. Specifically, I would fix the perks:
  • First point: slight reduction in chance to break a lockpick, first lockpick failure on each attempt slows the timer instead of breaking a pick.
  • Second point: additional slight reduction in chance to slow\break a pick.
  • Third point: overall increase of lockpick speed.
  • Fourth point: second lockpick failure on each attempt slows the timer instead of breaking a pick.
  • Fifth point: locking speed is even faster. After breaking a lockpick the timer picks up exactly where you left off (never again get locked into a 4 second groundhog day).
Human beings are notoriously bad at perceiving incremental changes in probability. It is a fact that if you perk into lockpicking, even though it can feel like there is no difference, that you just stop having to replace your lockpicks. So it isn't even that the perks are bad. It's just that the experience of lockpicking in this game feels punitive, and spending points in the perks don't feel like they are well spent. Having the perks provide a benefit that the player is able to easily observe, while also mitigating the negative lockpicking experience, would do wonders I think.
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Having the perk influence the speed of the visible dial is a great idea. It doesn't need new graphics, eliminiates the need to show probabilities at work and a relatively small increase should be still noticable to all players.
 
EvilPolygons said:
Regardless, you do get to choose how to engage with the mechanic. You can choose to pick or to bash. That's a choice. Relying on bashing means you don't have to ever spend points on lockpicking. The benefit is you have more points to put into other things, but the downside is a random chance to break a piece of loot when bashing a loot container. It's a trade off.
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No, the downside is that it takes forever early game to bash into it. Like someone else had mentioned, you might think it's "perfectly balanced" for other games, that does not mean it would be balanced for 7DTD. I'm betting those other games have a mini game as the alternative? With the success of lockpicking currently being left completely to chance, the tradeoff should not be MORE CHANCE that I lose something valuable. It should be more time to complete the action.

To the original question, I do think changes need to be made, because it's one of the most frustrating, non-fun thing about this game. I'd be in favor of simple mini-games, but there was also the point of how silly it is that lockpicks break in the first place. Yes, another RPG-standard mechanic. However, what if we had different quality levels or tiers of lockpicks? This is the apocalypse, after all, and players are use to creating "primitive" versions of tools. Early game could rely on home made picks that take longer than higher tier picks, and still have a chance to break (albeit much smaller than it is currently). For the higher tier there could be a lockpicking kit that is not craftable unless you spec into Lockpicking, though it is found in rare loot or purchased at a high price at the trader. The kit would never break and take considerably less time to pick than the DIY version.

No mini game; better chance at success, even in early game; primitive picks are cheap to make; still a way to make the perk valuable; open to all players who don't want to spend the points; less frustration. At that point, I'd support a chance for the loot inside to break if I choose to bash in, because the alternative is not largely governed by chance.
 
HammerDano said:
maybe replace lock picks with keys?
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I like the thought of keys. But not as a replacement. As a support mechanic.
A single icon of a keyring, that stacks the indexes of the locations associated with the key found.

The game is heading for the addition of some form of story content, keys and associated locations
can lead to expanded back stories. Similar to how map context is partially used now. They add a
possible additional variable to lockpicking.

Two big well used words are also choices and options. For stealth play, which makes less noise, unlocking
or bashing. Key associated text can point to a location if found, may have a diary or journal, that has bits
of the story that everyone hypothesizes about now, similar to the news clippings, and pictures.

As an Easter egg, a player may have a key on the chain that they forgot about, walk up to a locked door
or safe container and hear, the unexpected sound of a cylinder turning, once used it's could be deleted
from the inventory like in any other stack. It adds a simple form of content in regard to gaining entry.

Not all added content has to be overt, example the newly added sounds of the animals in the brush, or
when the chicken crow was added to let you know that potential game was around.

In the larger high tier pois, a master key or even a quadrant key, can gain entry to some locations, that
normally are only accessible through physical destruction, like elevator shafts, they can even turn on and off
machinery in the places.

When bandits are included, a part of their random loot can be a key to one of their hoard stashes, or to gain
entry to one of their compounds.

Whether they are a consideration or not, I use the lock picks, if I don't get into a safe and run out, I just mark
the house and go back later, it'll still be there. Its only limited by how you imagine it.
 
LittleNightma said:
I don't know if anyone has replied, but this seems like a bug. Unless I have missed a recent patch note mentioning Pack Mule, it should say 5%, not 50%.
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I don't know. I know people were saying it was a little over powered before.
Maybe like you said, they nerfed it then renerfed it, lol.

In my current playthrough in storms brewing, I've only put one point into pack mule just to get my backpack fully unlocked. I didn't pay attention much to the stats from the get go.
 
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