So, the survivor gear look great! In fact, according to many people, too great. It’s better in every way than normal gear (at least normal varieties of the same thing).
It’s also exactly the same for everybody.
My thoughts to remedy this is to remove the standard survivor gear and increase the number and kinds of modifications that the tailoring kit can do.
Things like:
more armor - check! you can do this right now.
lining - check! you can do some for warmth but how about a nomex lining?
tailored fit - not just fit or poor fit, but tailored to you (reduce encumbrance)
more pockets - more volume to carry around stuff.
Essentially, the idea would be that every survivor puts together what they feel they need creates unique clothing for them and their playstyle.
You already run into that. You can store a spear inside a trench coat for example. Wear a trench coat and cargo pants and stuffing a tire in your pockets is easy peasy.
Well, I suppose “better/best/custom fit” would be what you’re talking about, right? Not just matching pant or shirt size, but custom 1000$+ tuxedo levels of fitting? Yeah, I can see that. Would require the ultra-deluxe level of tailoring (10+) for more custom or complex stuff, but I can see the appeal. Wear 3 different coats in the coldest temps, but only get a fraction of the encumbrance? Sign me up!
Probably would be best if it came out along with an NPC/Clothing interaction adjustment overhaul patch, dealing with NPCs and how making them wear multiple things of one kind is a current nitpick to deal with. Be nice to have a pack-mule that isn’t killed by other NPCs like zombie slaves.
Or make clothing designed specifically for a follower, making it so they could wear shirts or jeans you find and you don’t have to make high-end gear for them just they have some clothes, like for the freakishly huge types if you play with mutants! Would be pretty nice.
Feels like some kind of fitted clothing set would make sense. Merging a bunch of stuff together to get a full suit or whatever you’d want to call it. Fitting one thing to another, pretty much. Make it all work.
Would take a while to equip or unequip.
Add a customization feature to all of that and things could get interesting.
Then again, sounds like a bunch of busywork for the devs. Big bad overhaul with a ??? return. I dunno.
Well, it would probably be part of a major “Customization” overhaul, making it so more things are centered around the player as a focus as they are a catalyst in the cataclysm.
That is not going to happen for a while though, as it is seemingly placed as a lower priority in a list of things to do that currently exists and everyone agrees on is like this:
1.Fixing things so they work / Making sure things get along nicely
2.Content Addition / UI Refinement
3.Community Interaction
4.Testing Experimental Content for far down the line things
5.NPC addition/refinement
<----This is where what we are talking about would be. Maybe.
6.New Mechanics
7.Story + Lore
This is just what I think I’ve seen the priority list be considering I have no hand in just about any part and am an outside party.
The influential developers would actually like to move to a world that is less player focused, not more. One element of that is going to be changing how clothes fit, so something that is tailored to minimize encumbrance on your 6’2" muscled Alpha mutant doesn’t fit perfectly on your 5’3" wiry Rat mutant companion.
Kevin has mentioned that he doesn’t particularly like the current reinforcing and lining mechanism, because it produces odd results like kevlar reinforced kevlar vests. He’s opposed to adding pockets via tailoring, because it would be a nightmare to balance.
Survivor good is probably too good overall, and definitely too quick to make. The devs are aware of it and hope to address those issues as part of a tailoring overhaul, but that’s a long way away.
I don’t know about too quick to make. It’s a bunch of clothing expertly rigged together by talented hands (needs high tailoring.)
I mean one idea to have a “progressive” survivor’s armor. Maybe because it has so many parts, make it poorly fitting from the start. Make the defenses not so fantastic. Make it so the player has to wear it and do things to find kinks in it. Another plate here, some more duct tape here, take off this bit here, etc. Same thing for all the other survivor things. Weapons don’t deal as much as weapons you might find in pawn stores or randomly in the world, and survivor storage limits you more than traditional.
That way, it’s more rewarding overall and it balances it out. It would also complement a more customizable clothing system, as the pinnacle of a tailor’s skills would be to make something truly theirs in every way.
Also, I worded that poorly. I mean more character-focused as in more focused on themeselves. More character specific bits would do wonders. Something more special than just traits. I don’t know what, but something more I can’t really place.