Decreasing tedious skill grind

[Thwap]

Am I seriously seeing someone talk about needing to oil guns and sharpen hacksaws? It’s asinine the way this game is being stomped to death in the name of realism these days.

The stupid boom cranes, filthy clothing, gun magazines, etc etc etc it’s just been getting worse for months now. The game now is just the game six months ago plus nerfs and tedium.

[WIndburns]

[quote=“Thwap, post:54, topic:12277”]Am I seriously seeing someone talk about needing to oil guns and sharpen hacksaws? It’s asinine the way this game is being stomped to death in the name of realism these days.

The stupid boom cranes, filthy clothing, gun magazines, etc etc etc it’s just been getting worse for months now. The game now is just the game six months ago plus nerfs and tedium.[/quote]

Shrug my shoulders

[Sheb]

[quote=“Thwap, post:54, topic:12277”]Am I seriously seeing someone talk about needing to oil guns and sharpen hacksaws? It’s asinine the way this game is being stomped to death in the name of realism these days.

The stupid boom cranes, filthy clothing, gun magazines, etc etc etc it’s just been getting worse for months now. The game now is just the game six months ago plus nerfs and tedium.[/quote]

I haven’t seen boom crane, but filthy clothing really isn’t that bad, and I actually like gun magazines: it’s nice to quickly reload from a leg pouch.

[Pantalion]

hmmm… that is about 1,000,000% more tedious then it is now. and tracking all that will DEVOUR processor power

You realise I’ve already covered this, right? And that you could haved use the eldritch technologies of this “message board” to give you context beyond one, specific post?

Whatever, let’s review:

1: All worn equipment can already degrade, except boots, gloves and masks are pretty much immune since they’re targeted so rarely.

Changes suggested:

Make repairing gear easier by making it take 1-2 hotkeys instead of a menu.
Stop armour from disappearing when “broken”, but possibly give it sensible protection/storage/warmth penalties the more damaged it is.
Possibly tweak damage chances to increase wear and tear and damage on hands, feet and faces and the items protecting them.

2: Certain weapons, which should probably need the most maintenance, instead take the least. Katana are far more fragile than baseball bats, but only one of those can take damage.

Changes suggested:
Make repairing weapons easier by making it take 1-2 hotkeys, and remove things like “Basic Repair Kits” and “Gunsmith kits” in favour of just using intuitive tools and materials.
Make Sturdy weapons degrade slightly more frequently in combat.
Make wooden Baseball bats craftable from logs.
Make firearms have a chance of degrading when firing them, rather than effectively never.
Stop weapons from disappearing when “broken”, and instead offer opportunities to repair them.

3: Items currently spawn into the game world either: Old, rotten, torn, dirty, or broken (pretty much everything except certain inventory items). You will almost never see a damaged toolbox, even if it was being carried in the hands of a zombie where everything else was broken.

Changes suggested:

Make repairing weapons easier by making it take 1-2 hotkeys, and remove things like “Basic Repair Kits” and “Gunsmith kits” in favour of just using intuitive tools and materials - potentially including just “Duct Tape on its own” for simple items.
Make the majority of items appear in the game world randomly damaged to simulate wear and tear since the apocalypse started. - Just like food, increase the number of broken and damaged (rotten) items over time.

Bonus suggestion: Have more “already wrecked” map squares. A house where windows are broken, walls and roof collapsed, or it has been in a fire and items (and zombies) spawned are burnt, damaged, and buried. Have these “ruined” locations be more common as the game progresses to give the impression that the world does not revolve around the player.

4: Tools never degrade, unlike armour, weapons, electronics (through batteries), cars, food, or buildings.

Changes suggested:

Make repairing weapons easier by making it take 1-2 hotkeys and simple, intuitive tools.
Make simple tools like stone knives degrade over time, while advanced tools will effectively never degrade.
Make crafting beyond your skill level have the chance to damage tools and well-being of the player, so as to introduce more risk into a less restricted crafting system (covered elsewhere).

5: Items in inventory or in play are effectively invincible.

Changes suggested:

• When the game is changed to move items to specific containers, make fragile items take damage if the player experiences massive trauma to that container - Much like falling on your keys, punched into a wall by a hulk can break the glass bottle of hydrogen peroxide you hit with your backpack.
• Change animal behaviour so they will actively seek to steal food and resources from the player, rather than just being wandering meals and zombie distractors. - They will attempt to break into a dropped bag, damaging items in their way, and damage food items while they “eat” them, lowering nutrition etc until destroyed and consumed.

Done. Entropy is now in Cataclysm, Repairing items sucks less and uses the same tools and materials you craft with anyway, system is minimally intrusive and can be modular to allow parts of the game players dislike to be removed.

[quote=“Thwap, post:54, topic:12277”]Am I seriously seeing someone talk about needing to oil guns and sharpen hacksaws? It’s asinine the way this game is being stomped to death in the name of realism these days.

The stupid boom cranes, filthy clothing, gun magazines, etc etc etc it’s just been getting worse for months now. The game now is just the game six months ago plus nerfs and tedium.[/quote]

The game doesn’t have to be sacrificed on the altar of realism, but just because something is realistic does not mean it has to be tedious.

You already need to repair guns. The only difference is that currently you use electrical current and a rare item, and they spontaneously disintegrate if they reach 0 HP. If my suggestion was “replace ammo of firearm repair kits with oil instead of batteries” then this would be more or less identical, except it would still more tedious than what I am actually suggesting, which would make repairwork less of a chore across the board.

Filthy clothing certainly needs fixing because the whole thing is very clunky and instrusive. As I’ve suggested in this thread, it should just be incorporated into general clothing maintenance in place of “reinforcing”, which is pretty pointless now anyway.

Gun magazines are really quite inoffensive now they’ve started spawning in the majority of firearms. I don’t mind very rare weapons being “broken and useless”, which is basically what having no clip is, any more than I mind vehicles spawning without wheels, battery or engine. When you can get spare magazines it can actually be pretty cool being able to reload quickly.

“Jacks” would be honestly be fine, except most scissor jacks that cars carry can’t even be used to change their own tyres, and considering there are 50 ton capacity bottle jacks for sale on Amazon right now for under $100, the current 6t limit one “and then ridiculous crane” is pretty daft.

So you’re right. This is a game first and foremost, “realism” should take less effort for the player than boiling water. Let’s try fixing jacks:

Scissor Jacks: 2t. Very Common Item found in cars.
Bottle Jacks: 6t, 10t, 50t versions available in garages, heavy vehicles, hardware stores, gas stations. 50t one is 28kg, so it’s pretty heavy, but just keep it in your car?
Construction Menu: Pulley System furniture: 4t jacking/lifting, needs a tree, a steel chain, some rope, some rocks and some scrap metal.
Mechanical Crane furniture item: Found in most garages. Infinite lifting/jacking weight.
Removing tyres from vehicles does not need a jack.

Tow truck crane: Specialised vehicle part with lifting weight up to 10t. Tow trucks added to potential vehicle spawns, only works while engine is running and crane is switched on.

Done. No tedious crafting a boom, attaching it, removing it, etc, all but absurdly heavy lifting is handled by having a single tool in your trunk, which plays will probably find in the same locations as welders. Worst case and you can’t find a jack, you have options available around town or wilderness to improvise, just as you do with welding equipment (makeshift jacks are a joke).

It’s now effectively a technology gate that gradually opens up bigger vehicles to the player, just like better tools open up better crafting options.

And the final test?

Boiling Water: You must find heating implement, container, water, sufficient quality Boiling Tool.
Making Car: You must find welding tool, sufficient quality Jacking Tool, appropriate vehicle parts.

Success. This feature is less complicated than boiling water.

[tarburst98]

it’s the number of changes that make it seem more tedious. needing to stop and repair one thing a day? slightly tedious, needing to repair 10 things a day? annoying, needing to repair 20 things a day? just plain aggravating. people are fine with needing to repair their gear after a big fight because it was the cost of having the big fight, but giving a cost to just walking around would not be fun.

[Pantalion]

it’s the number of changes that make it seem more tedious. needing to stop and repair one thing a day? slightly tedious, needing to repair 10 things a day? annoying, needing to repair 20 things a day? just plain aggravating. people are fine with needing to repair their gear after a big fight because it was the cost of having the big fight, but giving a cost to just walking around would not be fun.

Alright, let’s work with that. - but remember that the absolute foundation of my suggestion is “Easy Repair”. I can only assume I’ve not managed to explain it clearly enough.

Let’s say you have a busy day. You butchered five wolves in the morning, and now your knife is a little blunt (let’s say your knife gets blunt “once per season”, and today’s the day). You fight a horde of zombies in the afternoon, and now your gun is a little run down, some armour is torn, and your broadsword is bent from where you parried a Hulk. In the evening you found ten items you want to keep, five are damaged.

Worse still, you just checked your backpack and falling off that balcony has dented your atomic lamp, cracked your E-PC and crushed the eggs you were saving for breakfast bird mutagen.

Okay, throw away the eggs, they’re gone. Now let’s say all the armour, weapons, loot, and broken gear you do actually have twenty items to fix.

When you get back to your hideout, you turn on your light source and press:

%: Open quick menu.
R: Repair Items.

Prompt: Automatically repair all items to good condition, Y/N? (No brings you to repair a specific item in your inventory, you may also select Repair from the item information screen if you go to it in your inventory).

Y: You use 5 plastic chunks, 1 nail file, 1 rock, 5 rags, 50 solder, 1 cooking oil, 10 Duct Tape, 50 Thread, and 1 copper wire.
Your character stays still and “crafts”.

One hour passes automatically.
Game Message: “You have repaired all your items.”

You, the player, have repaired: One time. No matter how many items might be repaired, you spend five seconds pressing “%RY”.

Do you understand where I’m coming from here? Wouldn’t that be so much better than the current system? More fun? Less menus?

Let’s make our example as “tedious” as we can: Multiple items failed to be fixed, and repairing now takes different resources:

Yes, this would be a problem in the current system. you must navigate several menus twenty times, once per item, once again every time you need to repair something, and you must select multiple different options or items for each type of item you repair. But with “Easy Repair”?

Game Messages:
“You repair as many items as you can. Some items are still broken.”
“You are out of thread! You need x30 more thread to repair Shirt”
“You need 1 x Kevlar Plate to repair Survivor Suit.”
“You need 1 Cooking Oil to fix Automagnum.”
“You need one long string to fix longbow”.
“You need one scrap metal to fix Broken Frying Pan.”
“You do not have a good enough hammer to fix Nail Bat.”

I appreciate this is very rough, and could probably be refined to give this information across better, but to me this is not “tedium”, it’s gameplay.

Your gear won’t break if you don’t repair it straight away, you might repair once a week. It doesn’t matter how damaged something is, since “%RY” would fix every item as much as needed. So you can have several items that aren’t totally fixed, and some you might never bother fixing (Repair blacklist), but you will have a low intensity “need” to get those things to repair your gear when you can.

And when you do find parts to fix all the broken items: %RY, or wait until your next routine maintenance: Extra chore for the player: 0-3 keypresses.

So tl;dr, as I’ve hopefully made clearer now, this is not supposed to be a “gameplay suffers for realism” thing at all, the two are designed to work together:

“Easy Repair” makes the game faster and more fun for every player by removing as much tedium from repairing as possible (Well, you could make it a one-button hotkey, I suppose?).
“Entropy” gives the player more reasons to scavenge and adventure (does anyone disagree that these are the fun part?) by increasing resource pressure.

End result: Less time in menus, more time adventuring.

[tarburst98]

You use 5 plastic chunks, 1 nail file, 1 rock, 5 rags, 50 solder, 1 cooking oil, 10 Duct Tape, 50 Thread, and 1 copper wire.

nope, see, you just introduced a resource drain.

[Pantalion]

[quote=“tarburst98, post:60, topic:12277”]>You use 5 plastic chunks, 1 nail file, 1 rock, 5 rags, 50 solder, 1 cooking oil, 10 Duct Tape, 50 Thread, and 1 copper wire.

nope, see, you just introduced a resource drain.[/quote]

Yes and no.

While it would be increasing resource drain by causing more damaged items to occur in general for the player, this is entirely intentional (I said as much last post), and it is not “introducing” anything, because repair based resource drain already exists.

This would primarily be changing already existing resource drain (including, but not limited to: batteries, solder, plastic chunks, scrap metal, rags, kevlar, Nomex, Leather, Duct Tape, Thread…), and existing gear-gates (specialised repair tools for each individual type of repair). While the items given were just an example, the variety shown actually doubles as an anti-boredom feature, as a variety of different items to acquire means less repetition for the player.

That said, resource drain is not a bad thing at all, nor does it cause tedium - bad design causes tedium. Imagine the game without drains on the player’s resources:

The player does not grow hungry.
The player does not grow thirsty.
There are no enemies.
Crafting, vehicle creation, and construction are not only free, but instant (and all cars spawn fully repaired and gassed up anyway).
The player’s carrying capacity is infinite.

Pure sandbox, no game. Car house building walking simulator 2016.

There is hunger and thirst to stop you from remaining in safety forever.
There are enemies when you leave safety, so you seek equipment to protect and improve yourself.
There are crafting requirements to gain equipment, so you search out other skills and materials to gain the equipment you seek.
There are limits to carrying capacity so you make choices about what to keep and what to leave behind, and so you seek either permanent shelter, to store what you cannot bring, or a vehicle, to carry more along with you.

Just like real life, Needs -> Goals -> Choices. In a very real sense, the game is more fun for the player because of features that make life harder for the character.

[tarburst98]

sigh. i think the fact that everyone but you thinks this is a bad idea is what’s most telling.

[Grandpuh_Ty]

sigh. i think the fact that everyone but you thinks this is a bad idea is what’s most telling.

I don’t have a problem with what Pantalion is suggesting. All the materials for repairing items are readily scavengable from the nearest town, all you gotta do is go get them which introduces more risk to the character as you brave the undead hordes just like you would for food, books, or whatever else.

[Sheb]

sigh. i think the fact that everyone but you thinks this is a bad idea is what’s most telling.

I actually think his idea makes sense, and would add to the game if properly implemented. I remained silent because frankly I didn’t have much to add.

[tarburst98]

I don’t have a problem with what Pantalion is suggesting. All the materials for repairing items are readily scavengable from the nearest town, all you gotta do is go get them which introduces more risk to the character as you brave the undead hordes just like you would for food, books, or whatever else.

but you already go in to town to scavenge for materials, adding an incentive to do something everyone already does is pointless. it would also ruin people that want to live in the woods only which is currently hard but viable. what do they do when their stuff starts breaking and none of the materials it takes to fix it are around?

[Sheb]

[quote=“Grandpuh Ty, post:63, topic:12277”]I don’t have a problem with what Pantalion is suggesting. All the materials for repairing items are readily scavengable from the nearest town, all you gotta do is go get them which introduces more risk to the character as you brave the undead hordes just like you would for food, books, or whatever else.

but you already go in to town to scavenge for materials, adding an incentive to do something everyone already does is pointless. it would also ruin people that want to live in the woods only which is currently hard but viable. what do they do when their stuff starts breaking and none of the materials it takes to fix it are around?[/quote]

I guess that if you’re living in the wood, you are using stuff made from materials found in the wood, which can be fixed by stuff found in the woods.

[Pantalion]

sigh. i think the fact that everyone but you thinks this is a bad idea is what’s most telling.

Appeal to authority.

but you already go in to town to scavenge for materials, adding an incentive to do something everyone already does is pointless. it would also ruin people that want to live in the woods only which is currently hard but viable. what do they do when their stuff starts breaking and none of the materials it takes to fix it are around?

1: “Everyone does it” and “these people who don’t do it will suffer” are mutually incompatible claims.

It’s also strange to suggest that wilderness survival is “hard”. Wilderness survival is a perfect example of Low Risk, Low Reward gameplay. The risks of wilderness survival are extremely low, the “basics” are very easy to acquire, and the majority of enemies are easy either terminate or avoid entirely.

2: There is no basis to claiming that further incentivising good behaviour is pointless. Quite the opposite in fact.

In this case, increasing resource pressure means that either the player makes more trips into town (More Risk Management = Good), or must make choices into what resources they collect while in town (More Meaningful Choices = Good).

3: What do people living in the woods do when they want to craft any technological item? Or to find some bullets for their scavenged rifle?

They either go into town, find resources innawoods, or “Reality ensues” - They don’t, they drop the rifle, they keep an eye out for another one.

Secondly, remember that repair would primarily use the same materials and tools as crafting. If a player has the resources necessary to craft an item, they have the resources and tools necessary to repair it, and anything else, like oil, is actually a lot easier to come by for a player than things like batteries or firearm repair kits.

At worst, this would force survivalists to use more basic tools (which they have the means to repair and maintain easily) for day to day activities, and to force them to treat any advanced technology as the irreplaceable treasure it is - just as they should be doing already.

[Valpo]

[quote=“tarburst98, post:62, topic:12277”]sigh. i think the fact that everyone but you thinks this is a bad idea is what’s most telling.

Appeal to authority.[/quote]

Isn t this Argumentum ad populum instead?

[Pantalion]

[quote=“Pantalion, post:67, topic:12277”][quote=“tarburst98, post:62, topic:12277”]sigh. i think the fact that everyone but you thinks this is a bad idea is what’s most telling.

Appeal to authority.[/quote]

Isn t this Argumentum ad populum instead?[/quote]

Hah, whoops. You’re totally right, my only excuse is a three year old kicking me in the head while I was posting that.

[Zireael]

Pantalion, you just derailed the thread which was about skills and grinding recipes, not about tedium in general. Where were we? I think the idea had something to do with “training”, didn’t it?

[Pantalion]

Pantalion, you just derailed the thread which was about skills and grinding recipes, not about tedium in general. Where were we? I think the idea had something to do with “training”, didn’t it?

Remember that problems don’t exist in isolation. The tedium of crafting and repair causes knock on effects by making levelling up necessary for certain actions, and making grinding up your skill to reach those levels boring as paint desiccation. If you fix “tedium in general” about these things, you fix the tedium of these things by default.

But yeah, I believe that somewhere in my little tangent was:

1: Consolidate skills: Fabrication handles wood/plastic/plumbing and DIY, Mechanics becomes Metallurgy and handles smithing, welding and basic mechanisms like wheel axles or springs, Survival handles working in stone, chitin, bone and raw furs. Trapping becomes Tinkering and handles complex machinery like clocks and firearms.

Construction and traps merged into these and other skills where appropriate.

Gives: Focus on one skill to sensibly get better at one thing. The “weird” thing in the skill system is being able to forge plate armour but not weld a roof on, or put nails through a 2-by-4 you intend to hit someone with, but not one you intend to lay on the floor for somebody to step on.

Optional: Remove tinkering entirely and subsume complex mechanisms into the appropriate material skill. Even more concentrated skill gains, but mechanics gets a bit overpowered since most mechanisms are metal.

2: “Experiment”: Each item in the game has an Exp value for one or more skills, a Max Level up to where it’s useful (example: basic scrap metal is worth 5 Metallurgy Exp, and is useful up to level 3), and an amount of time it takes to “experiment with”. Each item is consumed in order, and when consumed gives a chance for unlocking recipes involving it, or a recipe for the item itself.

Remove all skill gain from crafting.
Allow attempts on recipes at lower skill levels if recipe is known.
Automemorise recipes on reading a book (incidental, just removes an unnecessary chore)
Remove level-based recipe unlocking for all except the most basic, obvious recipes.
Add “Experiment” command to the game, which opens the inventory (same as Eating or Dropping might) where the player can select items to experiment with (including mass select, as in dropping).
Improve arbitrary levelling mechanics.

Result:
No grinding needed to be able to craft recipes.
No grinding needed to be able to make better items.
No “grinding” at all for crafting skills, just select a command and wait.
No crafting whatsoever unless you actually need the item you will be crafting.

[Mattamue]

I hope to share some alternate points on the topics of skill grinds; simply to add that other games have solved for this in many different ways. Luckily, these are working and playtest-able as well in their respective games.

Diablo III, WoW, and FO3/New Vegas use recipes similar (but not nearly as deep) as CDDA. These all use a general character level to inform what skills can be used and items crafted… which might be worth considering for CDDA.

I’ve heard that Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura is good, but I’ve never played it myself.

Path of Exile was always interesting to me. I don’t think we need a currency sink, but growing off of the character level idea perhaps general XP could be earned and invested into skills in a skill tree?

NEO Scavenger is pretty close to CDDA thematically and they use qualities. Much smaller pool of items to craft.

Stealing some part of Witcher 3’s breaking-down mechanic could be useful. You’re incentivized to explore more for more than just books; by breaking down an extra Glock you might understand how to better craft a gun mod, for example. Giving more options to increase skills and learn recipes rather than re-making a sock 10 times. Having some recipes require disassembly to learn might be a good progression.

[pisskop]

Im sick of the word ‘tedium’ being used to justify taking out large portions of the game that make things matter. Or simplifying things so that the skyrim tier kiddies can come in and know how to find a door or find their spike recipe without searching for it like a sane person would.

Thats at noone and nothing in particular, though. The idea that say, item damage shouldnt happen because itd be tedium ignores the idea that you could something like a watch has any meaning. Every single watch after the first is redundant.