My thoughts if that's ok

[walkabout]

Been playing and reading this forum and the reddit for the past few weeks. I guess I was hooked. I have some thoughts about the game and though they may only apply to me and my preference, I thought I would share them here. Note that I am only going to talk about things which I feel could be better, so everything else, that I do not talk about, is actually great for me!

The major thing that got to me is the game flow. I will try to explain with some examples.

1)For instance - bionics could be gotten consistently throughout the game from the very start and to install them you will require some competence in 3 skills. This I feel puts some kind of incentive for players to start grinding very early on as oppose to travelling. Most games, I do not have to walk very far, or away from the first major city, before I find myself settling down to get my skills up by reading/crafting. I read a suggestion here on the forums that hospitals may in the future be used for installing bionics, if that is true I think I will welcome such a change, then players will have the incentive to explore and find hospitals. It would the opposite motivator in what I feel to be a more fun direction.

2. Learning recipes. I prefer the old way recipes are learned(thru reading) as opposed to the change that makes it what it is now. I feel maybe one thing is overlooked with this change - inventory management. Years ago, during my first contact with Cataclysm, I really enjoyed playing this survivor who travels on foot with a giant backpack and a tent/shelter. I also remembered a game where I travelled the subways on foot to other cities. With the change to how recipes are learned, I feel hardpressed to not build my mobile base in every game, so I can carry the dozen or two yellowed books(learned but with recipes I know I will need) with me. Or I can try to learn all the recipes so I can throw the books away but that soul crushingly grindy. Perhaps it is taken for granted that the player will want a vehicle? Though I like vehicle building, I do not want to feel like I had to drive in every run. (Still want to play my rollerblading guy)

Since it appears I am terribly verbose, I shall stop here. I understand the game allows alot of configuration to cater to different player needs, and that players themselves have adopted ‘roleplay’ to get more fun out of the game, but I will still post this anyway in case there is some relevance.

[kevin.granade]

I agree that dda has very little incentive to travel, and it’s something I plan on improving in a few ways.

1. Establish more unique points of interest.
   1. CBM installation.
   2. Advanced medical care.
   3. Trading partners.
   4. Unique scavenging opportunities.
   5. Quest destinations.
2. Adjust mapgen to distribute these points of interest across wider areas.
3. Make long-distance travel (many miles) more practical to do.

I see your point with the book thing, I wonder if we can just make things a bit more portable to address this.

1. Action to tear pages out of a book. Lets you reduce inventory space used if you only want a few recipes from a book (not helpful if you want them all).
2. Add a book scanner that you can use to load paper books onto an electronic device.
3. Make ebooks more readily available at e.g. libraries. This could be attached to a sub-quest to repair the library computer.

[stk2008]

How about

Ebook reader as a requirement

Camera which we have already

Memory cards which we have as well.

Here’s my idea

Take picture of pages in book to get a hard copy of all recipes

Unload memory card from camera

Insert into Ebook and transfer images to Ebook memory.

Profit.

Reload memory card to camera rinse and repeat.

Maybe have book stores stock some books on memory all ready on the shelfs :).

Maybe have a pda/tablet which would have a camera on it already so removes a step? Saving time.

[psyxypher]

Personally I’d love the ability to make your own settlement, Terraria style, complete with representatives from the other 3 big factions. It’d be great to be able to sell all my cornmeal without making such a long trip…

Honestly, I thought this game needed more reasons to stay in one place, not vice versa. I find myself going all over the place to scavenge so I can get more stuff, usually.

As for reasons you should travel, why not to scavenge?

Maybe make it so we had another “Broker” type NPC in the Refugee Center? This one, instead of taking non-perishables or general trading, takes valuable salvage and gives you cash money for it. Got 1,000 Copper? I’ll give you $50 dollars for that.

We could also give Russ Reynolds more money. That way, he can buy more items that’d be valuable but players might have more use for. I probably won’t use all those extra Rivtech guns I’m getting, but that built-to-last piece of military hardware might just serve Mr. Guard long enough to get a factory up and running again.

As for materials that a “Scrap Broker” could accept, I’d probably suggest:

• Copper
• Lead
• Silver
• Gold (best element for making currency)
• Bullets (Metro 2033 currency)
• Rebar (isn’t this why Arsonist NPCs exist? Or is that just another fabrication by TV Tropes?)
• Fertilizer (super valuable)
• CBMs (because I have so many god damn CBMs I can’t use that are just going to waste)
• Batteries

[kevin.granade]

Yea I forgot about cameras, That’s a much more accessible (but slower) way to digitize books.
There’s already a scrap dealer in one of the npc settlements, we could certainly use more. In general mod quests (even ad-hoc ones like random item fetch quests) are amother way to encourage travel.

[walkabout]

Thanks for the feedback, here are some more thoughts:

1. One thing I’ve heard quite abit is how the early game is the most fun part of the experience. I guess what I hoped for was to drag out the early game more. So distributing resources over a wider area as mentioned seems like a really good idea to me. That permanent base can come later down the line?

2. Cash cards. Would prefer they have no value or just the value of a plastic chunk. It feels like an exploit that I can just autopick them up and soon be able to buy out npcs’ stuff. They also have no volume and no weight. Sure there are vending machines, but no law to protect them or anyone to fill them. I imagine they will be emptied by other survivors quickly enough. And I guess it will be a trade off, to decide which is better.

3. On currency, if cashcards are made valueless, I do not think we need a new currency, civilization is not re-established yet afterall. Everything should be currency, or barter trade only since no one can trust the value of anything else. Would like to see solar cells/panels/guns/bullets/cbms(items that cannot be crafted) at the top of the value ladder. Clothings, even high level non-kevlar ones should have low value with the abundant of rags and leather, other survivors can easily train up their tailoring too.

4. NPCs learning. Would like for a first step, that all melee/dodge/marksmanship/weapon skills that one can learn from NPCs, be capped at 3. One can learn the basic of rifles, but to advance the skill further, practical experience is required. Further down, would love to see learning be incremented by percentage instead of skill point. Amount increased can be based on trust value or other considerations.

5. NPC cap. Maybe based off int. The world is a very stressful place after the Cata, so to be a leader of a bunch of stressful people takes something. Perhaps intelligence. The number of followers you can have around you is limited by your intelligence. Maybe those you left in your base are not counted? This serves as a starting to balance combat around the consideration you can have NPC followers.

6. In the Cataclysm, often the worst threat are not the monsters, but the intelligent monster inside us that crawls out into a land made newly lawless. Not sure how difficult it would be, but it will be nice if there is some kind of event generation that takes into account your ‘level’ - gear/skills/npcs , and generate a threatening event of corresponding strength- zombies, or other human gangs. Maybe this is already in place, with the way hordes work, not sure.

7. If more human bases are implemented in the future, would like them to have some facilities - workshop with anvil/charcoal forge(BYO charcoal). Some may have medical expert to help with cbm installation etc.

8. Book distribution by difficulty. Would like mansions to only have lowly books. The rich are supposed to be decadent and not very academic no? Kidding. Perhaps higher level books for each skill are gated behind tougher buildings, environment. Mechanics in factory. Electronics in Universities. First aid in hospitals. Bookstores and libraries within cities can have a lowered chance to hold these books too.

9. Going back to recipes. During a game, when I was trying to learn the antiseptic powder recipe, I found that it cannot be done despite making lots of antiseptic powder, clearing out an entire cemetry of its willowbark. Looking at the code, it appears that the chance to learn a recipe is tied to the time spent making them and the level of the item, which means a level 6 item that takes 30mins to make will probably need only a few repetition, which somehting like antiseptic(also level 6) which takes only slightly over a minute to make will require probably hundreds of repitition. This feels off to me, as, though not always the case, more difficult work usually requires more time. Maybe it’s just bad luck for my case if there is randomness involved.

Rambling abit, so I’ll stop here.

[psyxypher]

Cash cards. Would prefer they have no value or just the value of a plastic chunk

Those are the exact same, though. Plastic Chunks have no value.

[StopSignal]

gonna answer some, with my own opinion!

1- One thing I’ve heard quite abit is how the early game is the most fun part of the experience. I guess what I hoped for was to drag out the early game more. So distributing resources over a wider area as mentioned seems like a really good idea to me. That permanent base can come later down the line?

This is a problem, as maybe the reason the early game is the most fun part is because a bunch of factors, one of wich is how the resources are distributed. I guess you can space out cities and lower item spawn in the options if you want to drag it out, but you run in the possibility of making it unfun! be careful!

2- Cash cards. Would prefer they have no value or just the value of a plastic chunk. It feels like an exploit that I can just autopick them up and soon be able to buy out npcs’ stuff. They also have no volume and no weight. Sure there are vending machines, but no law to protect them or anyone to fill them. I imagine they will be emptied by other survivors quickly enough. And I guess it will be a trade off, to decide which is better.

that’s true, survivors shouldn’t care about them. However, it’s kind of the power fantasy of the lawlessness of the apocalyse to be able to buy stuff from vending machines, so i suggest those be kept filled, sometimes. But yeah buying NPC’s stuff with cash cards is kinda bad. NPCs are kind of problematic to balance though, though they have updated them quite a bunch. i just wish they weren’t so bullet spongey, hehe

Also, i agree with the next point as well!

6- snip
With a severe nerf to NPC’s spongeyness human gangs could be quite awesome.

7- snip
Something like that kinda reminds me of Stalker’s bases, specially the third game’s bases. Those were nice!

8- snip
Not sure. Libraries after all have every kind of book, that’s the whole point. I agree it kinda makes the player a bit powerful to have all of that just there. I don’t know how to balance this, other than that would not be the best approach. Maybe making the literal best of the best kind of books for their skills spawn in those specified places, rather than only lowly books spawning in normal places. So you can get to quite a nice level in a skill, but to get the endgame best recipes and skills you’d have to raid the specialized places. Of course, normal places would have a minimal chance for the best books to spawn, just for a nice surprise. So, kinda the same, but not really. Or maybe i read you wrong!

[Zhilkin]

Cameras are not that slow in digitizing.

[stk2008]

I think he means taking a pic of every page would be a slow process and I agree it should take some time doing this.

That what u meant Kevin?

[kevin.granade]

Yea I meant taking a picture of each page manually with a camera instead of i.e. putting the book on some kind of page-turning device.
It might seem fast at first, but after a few hundred pages, its going to add up.

[redxlaser15]

– The soul reason I came here is because I want to say a couple words to you, @walkabout. It is always okay to mention your thoughts, as long as you do not do things such as being racist, sexist, be insulting in general, and things of the sort. Much of the forums is about sharing your thoughts in the first place.
– As long as you have appropriate ideas to share, always feel free to do so.
– I am once again disappointed in humanity, as so very often we hesitate to speak up, to say how we feel and things of the sort. Why keep everything inside, if it could benefit others in many way? Don’t bottle your feelings, let them out and express them in a gentlemanly (or gentle-womanly in some cases) manor. It is such a simple thing, yet so many hide it.

–Depressing, it is.
-Totally a direct Yoda quote