PC Why do quest rewards get worse as you go up in tier?

[Mister Forgash]

It's a difficult balancing act.  We as players have many divergent expectations, motivations, and play styles.

This is so much it. Sure I -think- I know what would be best for the game.. but I'd probably be wrong so I just have to trust the pimps.. But I think trader meta is still too strong right now. We don't know what all kinds of updates are planned, so I'm holding out hope that we'll get a satisfying trader/questing overhaul. it's just so easy to be swimming in money, and to be able to buy high-end goods .. Think.. Crucible, T3 weapons - that stuff you read a lot of mags to make for yourself... I think it would feel better for the game if the trader were selling more weapon parts, raw goods, and mags- probably more expensive than they are now .. but pushing -while also enabling- the player to do more 'make it for yourself' activities.  .. Sounds pretty to me, but this might be someone else's nightmare.

 

[TWORDY]

It's a difficult balancing act.  We as players have many divergent expectations, motivations, and play styles.  IMHO, the loot from the "quest" should be the main reward and this should scale up as POI difficulty goes up (not necessarily just in end loot but in overall POI loot).  The Trader rewards should be minimal.

Trader Quest rewards changed the meta game, for the worse IMHO.  Many players just purely focus on the quest progression.  They rarely if ever, even consider looting a POI without a quest.  Which is maybe a disservice to the game.  I enjoy the game much more looting where, when, and how much to my whim; and not being forced through trader quest progressions.
 

Although not universally popular, introducing deeper RPG style / Barter quests may help.  Need a beaker? Do this, and this, and this, and bring me that, that, and that.  Could be used to remove some of the RNG gating if a player felt it necessary.  Even a bounty approach to quests having lower and higher difficulty quests available (not quest progression levels) may change it up a little.

Having said that, the game does not provide many alternative activities other than building to focus on.  I am cautiously optimistic for "rescue the survivor", "defend the settlement", "Fix this", "Destroy that", and other creative genre and game world appropriate type activities.

I would much more appreciate some limited interaction(s) with a trader(s) to progress only when it`s necessary or beneficial. Right now, the trader-grind except for digging and building is predominantly beneficial.

15 storyline missions baked into the world map might bring and fix a lot to the perception of progression flow.

I don`t like the fact that I have to go every single time to a trader to get a mission instead of launching a PDA, a tablet, or simple in-game menus, and then, select and take up a mission. 

The game badly needs different type of missions - defend premises, rescue a survivor, bounty hunter in the 4x4, fix and destroy, connect this and that, hunt for a pack of this and that animal here and there, raid the AI base, engage in world random events. Whatever, but there needs to be a higher variety of missions. The game gets dull after overplaying 3 alphas in a row .

Bartering is a great idea. Bring X amount of 3 items to get this and that and get what you want with a little bit of dukes and XP.

I don't even think rewards are balanced. 5000k dukes is hell a lot of a dime. Helmet Light - I know it is practical but Helmet Light + 4 other random modifications could make more sense. 10 lockpicks... 75 make a decent trade for 2500k dukes.  

The grind kills free exploration and peaceful slow-paced moments.

Balancing the game is an art, not only hard-data statistics.

 

[Suxar]

Нужна мензурка? Сделай это, и это, и это, и принеси мне то, это и это. 

I like this approach. There are really rare things, a measuring cup, acid, weapon parts (there are always not enough pistol parts), solar cells, specific volumes of books (often there is one volume missing from a full series and it does not drop or appear on sale). It would be nice to immediately tell the merchant what I need, and he would select a quest.