So the makeshift crowbar is an early game item that’s sole purpose now is opening crates. However, its length is 23cm and the lowest tier storage item that can fit it is hiking backpack which takes about 4 days to build for a starting character. How is it supposed to be used, what am I missing?
Fairly common Leather Belt drop ftw.
Not being able to take it on starter runs and having its benefits until that.
Need to pay attention to the section on weapons/equipment “Can be stored in:” these days with item lengths.
After some quick testing to make sure, apparently the Makeshift version actually can’t clip onto the Leather Belt (but can the Firefighter and the Police Belt as noted in that section) where the regular Crowbar can.
waves hands mysteriously
So either Golf Bag, Hiking Backpack, other belts or proper Crowbar version.
the makeshift crowbar has the belt_clip variable, implying it CAN be stored on belts… but yeah. tool belt is a mabye, a firemans toolbelt definitely will hold a makeshift crowbar as well as a fullsize crowbar
The problem is that by the time you get those more advanced belts and containers, you’ll probably already have a better version of a prying tool. By the time you acquire the makeshift crowbar, the only way of wearing it is in your hands which’s pretty terrible.
maybe someone should look into making a ‘wearable strap’ mod specifically for heavy weapon items?
Your reasoning is backwards, we don’t have a managed-to-the-item difficulty curve, just items that appear with the abilities and tradeoffs one would expect and that appear with the frequency one would expect.
In other words, yes a makeshift crowbar is rarely worth bothering with, but that is not a problem, just use something better.
Meanwhile, maybe we do add a carrying strap that will work with it or some other option for carrying it and it becomes a more sensible option, which is also fine.
1 Like
Again, you’re pretending that you’re making a simulator that has a goal of simulation instead of a game that has a goal of being fun to play. If an item is not worth bothering with from a gameplay standpoint, then why is it still present in the game? Simulation can be a tool in making the game fun, it’s not supposed to be the goal.
but that is not a problem, just use something better.
that can be a pretty big problem, for example in lab starts where the only way to obtain a “proper” crowbar is to make a hammer to build a kiln to build a crucible (from clay, good luck) then find tongs then build a forge to build an anvil then become a blacksmith to build a crowbar to open those 5 flipping crates that you could just open with a crowbar made out of a pipe before.
we don’t have a managed-to-the-item difficulty curve
you forgot the word “anymore”? because the game used to have that all along till around 0.E+.
the makeshift crowbar HAS a use.
you make it, because you dont have a crowbar… to use as a worse version of a crowbar.
if you manage to find a better crowbar, use that instead
if you manage to find a firetruck, bam, you’ve got a firemans belt, it holds both the makeshift and regular crowbar.
… the lab start is meant to be a challenge run, so saying that you don’t start with or have easy access to a crowbar is a moot point, because its SUPPOSED to be hard to survive in there (unless you do something like start there as a supersoldier, and drink every mutagen you find for positive effects… in which case you could just leave.) 9 times out of 10 those crates don’t even have anything in them, and if you REALLY want the stuff inside, you can just shoulder check the box and get it open that way.
you literally have the dev admitting that mabye there should be a belt loop you can attach to the makeshift crowbar as a means of carrying it easier, and yet you take that opportunity to tell him he’s doing the game wrong… not every item has to have a purpose, this isnt a 100% accurate simulation, jesus man just play the game and have fun with it.
4 Likes
Um, I do Lab Starts all the time. You can open those crates with a makeshift crowbar. It’s pretty much their last use, in fact, but I always make one pretty soon for just that reason. They won’t open doors anymore, but that’s not a problem in a Lab.
- Shane
1 Like
Again, you’re pretending that you’re making a simulator that has a goal of simulation instead of a game that has a goal of being fun to play. … Simulation can be a tool in making the game fun, it’s not supposed to be the goal.
You should realize that your goals for making some hypothetical game that isn’t a simulator are different than Kevin’s goals in writing CDDA. Nothing wrong with that, but Kevin’s idea of fun may be different than yours.
4 Likes
I’m not really comparing to some hypothetical game that I’m imagining, I’m comparing experimental version of CDDA to stable. I’m seeing that in the stable version items are more or less designed considering the order players get access to them, and in experimental this order seems to be disregarded multiple times.
I’m not sure what, but I think something changed in development direction around this summer/autumn. It’s also the same time when the whole bright nights project has become active seemingly pushed by those changes.
I think you are fabricating something where nothing exists.
Bright Nights has had basically no impact on how this game is being and has been developed.
There has been no such consideration that I have seen (and I watch everything that happens on github, and pretty much the same on discord) in the entire ~2 years I have been contributing.
Perhaps at some point there was a straw that broke the camels back that was some ancient consideration of this that had laid in place, but I think it is more likely that no such thing existed, and that your perception of this has either been coincidental or your brain opportunistically finding a pattern where there is none.
I’m definitely not suggesting that bright nights had any impact on CDDA development course. It’s quite the opposite: bright nights had to (re-)spawn due to recent CDDA development course.
This is a false dichotomy, degree of verisimilitude is a means to an end for delivering engagement, fun, etc. Your strawman that we’re making a “simulation for the sake of simulation” isn’t going to get you anywhere.
This concept is called the “well formed” theory of drama and outside of the strictest adherents such as stage plays, board games, and many video games, it’s ignored. It’s lauded as a mechanism for delivering a clearer story, but in my opinion it’s nothing more than a justification for cost-cutting.
The solutions to the lab start challenge don’t drive the remainder of game design.
It literally never had that. Whales very explicitly stated he balanced the game by the seat of his pants, and I’ve definitely never attempted to insure any particular balance across all items in the game.
I’m guessing you view it as such because you didn’t have something that sufficiently bothered you. The way the game is developed hasn’t meaningfully changed in half a decade.
3 Likes
&
I think the problem with that is that you’re comparing an incomplete, simple version with another still incomplete though slightly more complex (and bit more complete) version of the game and talk about the simple version as if it had reached its goals and should no longer develop in specific points.
The “change” in development that you’re talking about was probably the more realistic way of carrying stuff around; the pocket system. This “broke” a lot of things you could do before and forced to adapt to a new playstyle, which just made things more complex - not “worse” per se. The point is, this idea (or, to be more accurate; goal and development direction) was around quite some time. The game just… well… develops.
If in the future buildings will collapse based on weight and support without leaving floating bits of floor all around, when fire spreads realistically and can’t be stopped by 1 ml of water - maybe even consuming a whole town, when at some point you might even be able to enter an other dimension, when you can’t leave cars through the gaps that come into existence when you park diagonally… then that’s not a change in development direction or putting simulation before gameplay, but just the way the game moves as it gets developed fully.
I have been paying attention to this game for over a year now, and it always strikes me how different it is from any other game I can think of. I don’t think people less acquainted can quite wrap their minds around it. The way so many other game are designed and updated get in the way; hard to see past the traditional way games are made.
The makeshift crowbar stays in your hands at all times if you’re a fresh character that wants to raid the backrooms of some store. But, if you just raid a house first, you are extremely likely to find a hammer in one of the kitchen cabinets, which has the same Prying 1 quality but is much much smaller, and thus able to open crates.
I personally modded the makeshift crowbar to fit into the leather belt as I found it a bit silly that it doesn’t fit in a leather belt, but a normal crowbar does. But I stopped caring to run the mod as the realization hit me that hammers hold Prying 1 the same as a makeshift crowbar.