[quote=“pisskop, post:40, topic:11418”]It was an armorboost of 33% in some cases.
2x2s became 3x3,armor, and 4x4 coats became 6x6
derp. 50%. Some items got 50% more armor[/quote]
Why didn’t they go the SANE route and just make it a fixed, small multiplier of the existing armor values?
It meant you had to reinforce everything in order to make a full use of it. That was a waste of player time.
It meant (still means, unfortunately) that you could improve on a power armor with a soldering iron and a bunch of scrap. Strictly improve, with no side effects.
And no, reinforcement doesn’t always mean you get more armor. That would be padding. Cotton padding could be a thing too, but reinforcement isn’t that.
Reinforcement means somehow making the thing more resistant without making it more encumbering. That would be strengthening the parts that break easily, but pretty much only those.
Because it only sounds sane to someone who either isn’t sane or didn’t think it through.
You get a bunch of items that don’t get any improvement, but no feedback about that. Does the t-shirt get a bonus or does it not? Does the hoodie round up to +2 bonus or just +1?
You need special handling for something nearly meaningless (“fixed, small multiplier”).
When doing balancing in the jsons, you need to keep the reinforced armor values in mind and can’t just use the ones written down (same kind of deal as with VARSIZE, which should be inverted into “MAY_NOT_FIT” tag instead).
Then you get a mechanic that doesn’t do much, but pretends to be realistic (and is actually anti-realistic, because you still have power armor soldering).
It still turns the mechanic into something that’s virtually pointless. And as I’ve stated before, now it’s a massive amount of tedium for very little reward. Now it makes even more sense to make it less tedious to perform, as the only benefit now is one more hit before it starts to lose protection.
Though in retrospect, that does sound more relaistic, that “as much enhancement without adding any encumbrance” would only shore up the weakest link without adding usable padding, so I’ll concede that point.
It’s useful for rare stuff you certainly don’t want to lose, when your level is high enough for you to get and maintain such things.
This is pretty much the only reason why we kept reinforcing rather than dropping it entirely due to how badly designed it always was (it was worse before the nerfs - it was optimum gameplay tedium back then).
My current idea for reinforcement is to split it into 2 different things:
Padding, which improves armor and worsens encumbrance.
Structural reinforcement, which improves chip resistance (resistance to damage to armor itself), does nothing at all to armor value, and worsens encumbrance
Then maybe removal of the loss of structural resistance with damage, to prevent armors quickly falling apart soon after they take the first point of damage.
Hmm. Personally it would still seem acceptable to make reinforcing armor be less of a nuisance. In game balance terms, making it less of an awesome thing means there’s reduced need to make it abnormally time-consuming relative to repairs. Though if I’ve misunderstood you and reinforcing gear is no more difficult than repairing from |/ then it would be fine by me. XP
So there’s no rifles with built in magazines? Lever actions, The style you saw in most of the westerns is that style. When I was younger I hunted with a .30-30 lever action, and so did most of my cousins and uncles. I think the model I had was Marlin. There’s a magazine chamber below the barrel that held 7 rounds with a side load. Browning was one of the first lever action with a clip which was introduced in the late 1980’s, and it held a whopping 5 rounds. I remember my father being very exicted in getting his .308 that way when I was growing up.
Lever action guns would be pretty sweet.
Have you seen how fast some of those old rifles can be fired by hand?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MUVj-txHiQ <- aim and shoot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1BwUJ4--Qw <-- just shoot
Several guns will be retaining the existing system that doesn’t use detachable magazines, yeah. Though sadly there’s a lack of lever-actions. The BLR is magazine-fed, or at least it oughta be, and there’s a couple makeshift rifles implied to be. However, in game terms there’s no effective distinction between bolt-action, lever-action, pump-action, or semi-auto.
The extra armor actually provided more tearing resistance, a higher threshold for tearing. I suspect that was the grand idea behind the armor buff originally. And now you’ve removed it. You’ve therefore nerfed reinforcing to be weaker (and less meaningful) than you probably intended. You should bring back the increased tearing resistance effect somehow. Otherwise there’s not much point to reinforcing now. Reinforcing is now difficult, it takes materials and the gain is minimal. A point of extra item HP means little.
Besides, I, for one, often disrobe heavily damaged items before they even get a chance to be destroyed.
My suggestion for reinforcing:
If item’s base armor stat 10 or less -> flat +1 to the said protection stat. (possibly fire, enviro and acid prot as well)
If item’s base armor stat 11 or more -> +15% to the said protection stat, rounded up to nearest integer.
Possibly implement a maximum allowed armor value for an item. 99?
And we use base figures because we don’t want padded clothing to gain anything more than what they deserve.
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:44, topic:11418”]My current idea for reinforcement is to split it into 2 different things:
Padding, which improves armor and worsens encumbrance.
Structural reinforcement, which improves chip resistance (resistance to damage to armor itself), does nothing at all to armor value, and worsens encumbrance
Then maybe removal of the loss of structural resistance with damage, to prevent armors quickly falling apart soon after they take the first point of damage.[/quote]
This. A thousand times this.
[quote=“pisskop, post:40, topic:11418”]It was an armorboost of 33% in some cases.
2x2s became 3x3,armor, and 4x4 coats became 6x6
derp. 50%. Some items got 50% more armor[/quote]
Don’t look at raw percentages when dealing with such small numbers. 1->2 armor increase is insignificant, even pathetic, yet it’s a 100% increase. 4->6 is fair, even generous, but not OP.
Its pathetic until I rode into battle wearing 19 undershirts :o
I didnt actually do that, but I did layer a lot a weak ‘civilian’ clothing until I noticed they got more easily destroyed.
Im not so sure Im honestly happy that they can get ripped under my kevlar vest or that the leather clothing is so easily destroyed.
It is easily fixed and mostly easily crafted, but I like to pretend my character is riding into battle with leather chaps and leather pants and no undies.
Nope. That’s still in.
Hmm. Also related, Kevin’s working on a mod that’ll change the magazine-ified guns back to the way they used to work, which is a smart idea for a feature that might be controversial.
Thank Christ.
You know a great place for rope/string?
Boxing gyms
I always forget to mention them because theyre so situational, but if you can smash up the boxing ring’s rope youre se for quite a while.
More anit gun…err…anti clip ranting:
So I decided to go back to bows now that guns are totally lame with the clip biz (IMO). Big mistake. Should’ve just stuck with simple shotguns (since my beloved saiga was also mangled by the clip thing - sometimes I feel like the game reports usage of things or fun factor so it can all be nerfed into oblivion).
BTW, I’ve been playing games for over 30 years and I can’t think of a single game ever where one had to reload clips to be able to reload guns. You know why? Because it’s a stupid idea, that’s why. It’s not fun. Maybe for a few people it is, so maybe it would’ve made a great mod for those few who want unnecessary levels of tedium added to the game. Realism in games is a neato idea as long as the concepts of fun and game are kept in balance with the attempts at or influence of realism.
So I’m using my bow, and now the game prompts you almost every time you shoot for which arrow to use, the worn one you just grabbed with auto pickup, or a fresh one, or whatever (seen multiple options a few times). Again, not fun. In fact, completely annoying. Having to see a popup almost every time you shoot is pure pain when dealing with a lot of zombies. Make it stop.
Are clips realistic? Yes, of course. Are they a good game mechanic or fun? Maybe for someone but not in general, which is why it’s not done in pretty much all of game design. Are worn arrows realistic? Of course. Is it good for any game? No. This is why things get abstracted. Instead of worn arrows, increase the rate that arrows disappear/die so you can’t re-use them so easily and have to craft ammo more often. THAT is a good mechanic - make the player invest time and mats - not have to select an arrow for almost every shot.
So why selective realism…what I mean is, why make clips and arrows suck in the name of realism when so much of this very game is abstracted. Here’s a great example. Is it even remotely a shred of realism that joe average can go from knowing zero about auto mechanics to being able to fabricate vehicles (monstrous bases on wheels with full kitchens, turrets, solar, reactors, etc) from salvaged parts using hand tools and a welder (or even duct tape…wtf)? No, this is so far from realistic that it’s completely ridiculous. But dinking with vehicles in this game is massive amounts of FUN and making it realistic would be an exercise in pain for both devs and players and even pushing it to slightly more realistic would likely diminish the fun. Plus it’s nice to think you’re arnold or something as you put a v12 into a car with just your manly muscles and without destroying it, the car, or yourself.
Could joe average make a freaking mutagen using a kid’s chemistry set and some amonia and bleach? Probably not. Some really crappy meth you wouldn’t sell to anyone you like, maybe. But it’s cool as a GAME concept to be able to fabricate mutagens without the requisite master’s degrees in multiple fields and a proper and functional biochem lab, which would be tedious and miserable to have to do in the game (well, sorta, the game already has lab POIs and there are already special machiens in hospitals and labs for other purposes, so in theory, there could be genetic lab machines or something required to create mutagens, and our super heroes could master said machines just by reading about them, but I digress).
Our characters plow thru mountains of food but we don’t have to sit there and deal with the tedium of put water in pot, bring pot to boil, let liquid cool, put liquid in container - now you have one container of clean water and it was such a monumental hassle due to realism that you fell asleep on your keyboard. It’s abstracted. In fact, we can just batch craft the mundane stuff because dealing with it one at a time would suck - kind of like loading clips or picking arrows on every shot.
And so on.
I guess it’s also worth mentioning it’s a post apoc game with lots of zombies, homicidal wildlife, plant people, interdimensional visitors - aka, typical non realistic things you find in games. But we need to have to load up individual clips and pick whether we fire the fresh, worn, slightly worn, a little more slightly worn, or whatever arrow! Ug.
So to me, making some things selectively more realistic because some dev had an idea maybe isn’t always the best thing for the game. Make it a mod or an option.
As a (non game) dev myself, I know that not every idea I have is a good idea. It might seem like the best idea ever to me and then a client/user looks at me like I have tentacles. So sometimes you have to just undo bad ideas, or make it an option and pretend everyone likes it, or in gaming, especially a game like this that “ships” with multiple mods, make things like clips or worn arrow torture a mod.
/shrug
Oh well, there’s always the few shotguns that haven’t been screwed with. I never much cared for guns anyways but I was trying to get into them before the clips and I can do without bows - ear plugs and shotguns, ftw.
PS - I read this comment after writing all this. Yay.
Hmm. Also related, Kevin’s working on a mod that’ll change the magazine-ified guns back to the way they used to work, which is a smart idea for a feature that might be controversial.
Thank Christ.
Amen.
tl;dr
Clips are Work in Progress.
As for arrows: if someone described a clear algorithm that allows selecting arrows without inventory hacks and dependency on items (say, quivers), it could be implemented.
Have you tried quivers? Or do you still get splashed with the menu if you wear a quiver AND carry arrows in your inventory? If so, that’s a clear problem.
I think the arrow type selector should be an invokable menu, rather than being something that the game pushes to the player under various conditions. When the player runs out of chosen arrow type, it would report “Out of arrows. Choose a new arrow type to fire. Hit [hotkey] for the arrow selection menu.” The assumption here is that the game tries to use the previously fired arrow type. Then we might have:
Options → Bows
[x] Attempt to use same arrow type as previously fired.
[x] Notify after firing the last arrow of the stack. (red message)
[x] Use arrows in best condition first (same arrow type).
[_] Ignore arrow condition, choose arrow randomly (same arrow type).
What I’m saying here is that bows & arrows should be handled differently than guns altogether, because you can fire a variety of arrow types, and because bows are single-shot weapons. The bowman doctrine is different to a gunfighter doctrine. A bowman has to choose his arrow with each shot, because we have explosive, incendiary or other area effect arrows. But they are used only rarely.
Alternatively, cycling through arrow types with a hotkey without any menu altogether could be worth exploring. Again, the game would always attempt to use the previously fired arrow type first. You could then inform the player
“You pull an arrow from your quiver and fire it.”
OR
“You pull an arrow from your inventory. It is slower.”
a quiver works. but in order to carry 2-3 types of arrows I usually have a quiver and a large quiver.
Guess what the game does… “Which do you want to use?” every frick’n single shot.
So I used a large quiver and then massive stacks of arrows in my inventory for if I want to use something else. Except it doesn’t work when you want to use some of the 20 metal arrows you have. Because you’d have to reload it into a quiver.
Bows/crossbows need a ‘default’ usable quiver/type.
How do I solve this? Bolt driver! Not the best weapon, but it solves all other issues.
With all the changes in the next version that I don’t like. I’m probably sticking with .C forever.
It seems like if someone comes up with a tedious bullshit change in the name of “realism” it just gets slapped into the game, and making it decent or playable is an afterthought. Like can someone host the last pre-clip version of the game for people to download if experimental is going to be hobbled with tedious “work in progress” crap?
Don’t arrows of the same kind stack? Isn’t there a way to just use that kind until it runs out, and have something in the fire menu to change ammo? That seems pretty good in terms of ui design. No idea how to code it, though.