I recently fired up 0.C and created a new survivor. I was surprised how much smoother and fast paced the game play was in comparison to now.
I don’t mean to diminish the great work that has been done over the past year; Z Levels, better NPC’s , a lot more content and of course the cleaner code infrastructure. However, it feels like not much attention is being paid to game play. The game just feels much more sluggish and grindy. Training skills is no longer a practical option, turning books from a nice boost to an absolute requirement. The new encumbrance system is too punishing, especially for characters just starting out.
Following is a partial list of things that stood out as better in my 0.C game:
[ul][li]Tailoring: It used to be that fixing and reinforcing clothes was a viable way to get some experience in tailoring while doing a meaningful activity, especially at the earlier levels. Right now you could easily spend a few hours and tons of thread trying to darn a pair of socks, end up damaging them, and NOT getting 1% tailoring experience out of it. In fact unless you’re a world class tailor, attempting to repair any clothing is a waste of materials at best. If you want to become a better tailor, you have to grind 20 pairs of socks instead of using the skill in a meaningful activity. [/li]
[li]Mechanics: It used to be that the taking vehicles apart and repairing parts provided significant experience, and the mechanics learning curve felt smooth and unforced. In the latest experimental I played, turning an electric car into a home station and then fully repairing the thing netted me less than 50% of a level in mechanics. without a book, my only resort was to mindlessly install and detach parts for the remainder of the experience[/li]
[li]Cooking: Cooking is an activity that you do all the time. Yet, with the new experience system you don’t get any experience for doing it. Realistically, you mostly cook a few dishes based on what kind of ingredients you have at hand. After a couple of levels you won’t be gaining any experience for cooking unless you are deliberately grinding for it. The new nutrition system can impose even stricter constraints on what you cook to eat, making grinding even more of a necessity[/li][/ul]
in 0.C grinding was an option that you could abuse. Right now, unless you find the appropriate books, it is a fundamental part of the experience and you are penalized for NOT participating in it.
These might be balance issues that can be fixed by tweaking a few numbers, but I think it’s not a bad exercise to play a game of 0.C to get a feel of what direction the game is heading.
You do realise there’s a configurable option you can set to totally change the rate of skill learning? I normally tweak it a bit higher than vanilla and don’t normally have a problem, gives a decent sense of progression without being grindy, but obviously you can fine tune it to suit your tastes.
As for cooking, bear in mind iirc there’s not actually that much that higher levels of cooking unlock, I don’t think - once you’re up to about level 4 you have most of the recipes you need iirc, and most of the rest is chemistry.
Agreed that tailoring’s a lot harder, but by the sounds of it that’s by design. Don’t mind myself but can see why you could find it frustrating.
Reinforcing clothes should be a choice. You trade time and thread for reinforcement. You don’t HAVE to reinforce every single piece of clothing in a starting shelter - if anything stable was more grindy because reinforcement used to give armor, and it was too good to pass by. Also shitty underwear-tshirt-hoodie combo made you immune to almost everything at the very start, that’s why i had to run both fast and tough Z mods to make the game at least somewhat challenging.
Mechanics and cooking - same logic. Deathmobile and good meals should be a privilege - not something every survivor must have. You can remove and replace almost any part with 2-3 mechanics - easily grindable. You don’t have to fix that v12 or install improved solar panels - that’s a luxury.
Reinforcing clothes should be a choice. You trade time and thread for reinforcement. You don’t HAVE to reinforce every single piece of clothing in a starting shelter - if anything stable was more grindy because reinforcement used to give armor, and it was too good to pass by. Also shitty underwear-tshirt-hoodie combo made you immune to almost everything at the very start, that’s why i had to run both fast and tough Z mods to make the game at least somewhat challenging.
Mechanics and cooking - same logic. Deathmobile and good meals should be a privilege - not something every survivor must have. You can remove and replace almost any part with 2-3 mechanics - easily grindable. You don’t have to fix that v12 or install improved solar panels - that’s a luxury.[/quote]
Yay for someone who gets the design logic.
Top-of-the-line is a reward. Mid and low level stuff are where usual players will be for a time, and actually imo this period is the most fun:
You are fighting for survival, constantly have to think and usually improvise and what stuff you use are usually held together with glue and hope.
At mid game when semi-top-grade equipment is around, game starts to become more like “i do what i want and live around the top of the food chain” than any normal standard survivor should have a right to achieve. This is somewhat amended in the experimentals, certainly better than in 0.C.
As for mechanics - the grind shouldn’t really be a thing here.
So far I haven’t seen a good idea on how to “un-grind” mechanics. This doesn’t mean it’s working well, it’s just that it can’t work better.
It should work more like cooking, where you need uncommon ingredients to advance.
You don’t need 4+ cooking for dietary needs. 5 is where cooking ends and chemistry starts.
You don’t need to grind for cooking 1-4. All levels from 0 to 3 have useful recipes.
Level 2 is a bit bad since broth is relatively expensive, cooked dandelions are grindy, and level 3 has cooked acorns (meaning grind is rewarding), but all other cooking levels are nearly grind-free.
To get to cooking 5, you just need to craft the hardest food available when hungry rather than picking the most convenient stuff.