Dev Log #12: Grenade Changes and Item Durability

[Styg]

Two important changes to game mechanics in this update.



A lot of you have been complaining of how overpowered and game changing the grenades are due to how easy it currently is to deploy them exactly where you want even with no points invested in the skill, so I made some long overdue changes:

• "Grenades" skill has been renamed to "Throwing". It will now be used when calculating precision of all throwing actions (such as tossing flares and using throwing nets).
• Grenade cooldown no longer decreases with skill. A cooldown reduction feat will probably be introduced in the future.
• Grenade range no longer increases with skill.
• Throwing precision now increases with skill and decreases with throwing distance. The less precise you throw the farther the grenade will land from the targeted location (up to 3 tiles away).

I've introduced item durability for weapons and armor pieces (helmet, torso armor and boots). Now, some of you might not like this but hear me out first.

My main motivation for introducing degradable equipment is to reduce the amount of money the player can accumulate past the early game. As you start delving into "dungeon" areas of the game, you start finding more and more loot. And there has to be plenty of loot because different characters need different things and you have to give every type of character a decent chance to find a weapon/armor that he can use. Furthermore, whenever you kill an armed NPC (or a bunch of them) you get to loot their weapons and armor.

So very quickly you find yourself with a bunch of spare weapons and armors sets that you can just trade for a heap of money and whatever your heart desires. It's not supposed to be that easy. So now whenever you find a weapon or armor in a dungeon or loot it from a corpse it will have reduced durability and hence the cost. You can then repair the item and use it yourself, you can sell it for a percentage of its total value depending on how damaged it currently is, or, if you are crafty enough, you can recycle it for "scraps" that you can then use to create repair kits. You can also purchase repair kits from merchants, they will be plentiful.

There are three types of durability - mechanical (firearms, crossbows, metal armors, etc), electrical (energy and electroshock weapons) and fabric (leather armors, tactical vests). Depending on the item's durability type, the skills used to recycle the item (and then create repair kit from scraps) are mechanics, electronics and tailoring respectively.


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And now I'm done messing with game mechanics for a while. Next up, new areas and quests.

[Eliasfrost]

Very interesting changes, I actually like the durability/cost relation that you have introduced, but for the scraps: are these just 'scraps' (as in an item on its own) or is there different components that you extract from salvaging equipment, like plates, padding; scopes and handles from weapons etc? And how will the scraps develop as a resource within the game, like how many different purposes are scraps useful for, and stuff like that?

[WolveNZ]

Sounds very nice, everything I just read, the Durability system would provide something extra to going down a crafting route instead of just, crafting on its own ^^

[joejoefine]

I think the durability change is good if the point is to reduce the amount of money you can get from exploring areas, I just hope that durability for your own items doesn't decrease too rapidly like it did for Fallout: New Vegas; I feel like it detracts from the game play when you have to worry about it too much.

[Dickie]

Am I reading this right that durability doesn't degrade over time/with damage/whatever but is just set when the item is spawned and if you repair it, you're good to go? Can you equip broken stuff?

[Styg]

Very interesting changes, I actually like the durability/cost relation that you have introduced, but for the scraps: are these just 'scraps' (as in an item on its own) or is there different components that you extract from salvaging equipment, like plates, padding; scopes and handles from weapons etc? And how will the scraps develop as a resource within the game, like how many different purposes are scraps useful for, and stuff like that?

Scraps are their own item (there are three types: metal, electronic and fabric). For now, they are only used for creating repair kits, but I have another use in mind that I might implement soon.

[Styg]

Am I reading this right that durability doesn't degrade over time/with damage/whatever but is just set when the item is spawned and if you repair it, you're good to go? Can you equip broken stuff?

Forgot to point this out, but the weapons and armor do degrade with use. You can equip broken stuff but it will not work as well. Armors will give reduced resistances if too low on durability or no resistances if they are completely broken. Weapons will have reduced chance to hit if low on durability.

[bella]

exciting

[Eliasfrost]

Indeed

[Koschey]

Hadn't got the time to check this out yet, but how big a role do the cafting skills play for repairing equipment? Are there any NPCs able to repair the equipment of an unskilled player? Otherwise this change could widen the gap in wealth between crafters and non-crafters even more.
To elaborate: While found loot is no doubt very valuable, crafting-oriented characters in my experience have still a much easier time amassing wealth. They get all the valuable loot other characters would find and in addition can increase the value of some of it many times over by crafting items from otherwise unneeded components (an early example would be tailoring and rathound skins). So not only do crafters earn more by scavenging, but depending on how item durability is balanced, they will need to spend significantly less on equipment maintenance. Additionally, what applied to found components will also apply to damaged loot: The increase in value from reparing could easily outscale the cost of repair for a skilled crafter, even further exacerbating the problem. This could lead to a situation where non-crafters are barely able to keep their equipment in working condition, while crafters still don't really know what to do with all their cash.

Also, how fast do items degradate with use? For example I'd really hate having to fall back multiple times while clearing out the GMS compound just to keep from getting slaughtered because of broken equipment. Maybe restricting the degradation to being critically hit?

As I said, didn't have time to check the new build out yet, just the first things to come to mind. Not really bothered about the introduction of durability, but it's an easy to mess up aspect of game design in my opinion.

[WolveNZ]

I think it would balance out as Crafters would lack other skills such as PSI, Combat or stealth to have a good crafting skill, so they will have to rely on Gear more than ability in allot of cases where having a Decent PSI, Stealth or combat would be usefull. Would be nice to see some more diplomacy for non combat oriented characters, like with the GMS compound, being able to get a job to get the key, or find something of value (Stealing or crafting)

also, with the armour values, not related to the Dev log, but its right now something like 20%/13 or something, so is that 20% of upto 13 damage resisted?

[screeg]

I'm going to toss my $0.02 in here (not just to be contradictory), but IMO there are better ways to balance the economy than having degradable stuff.  I agree that the players gets WAY too much money for armor, crafting ingredients, and just about everything else, but I don't get any pleasure out of micromanaging frayed armor and decaying weapons.  It's a chore, just like having four different inventory slots dedicated to four different stacks of disposable lockpicks.

I think if you slashed selling value to 20% of what it is, across the board, you would be a lot closer to a viable economy.  Why not distinguish between "new" and "used" items, where items salvaged from enemies are worth 20% of what they are now, with minor stat penalties, while items purchased new from a merchant still cost the same.  Or have the merchant items have the max stat for the class, while enemy items are comparatively valuable to the player (because you didn't have to buy them), but worth much less to sell.

A more sophisticated approach would be to have purchase prices scale downward if the merchant (or all merchants) already has several like items in his inventory.  So if the dude has five armors of whatever kind already, he's not going to pay top dollar for your leather.

I'm concerned that just about every update you're piling on more inventory management.  I know that this is a part of great RPGs, and I like it fine, but it seems like I'm going to spend more time sorting through piles of stuff than I am capping guys.

But hey, the grenade improvements make good sense!

[WolveNZ]

The problem with that is that if you start hacking away at the sale prices, you reach the area where making Health Hypo's, PSI Boosters, Grenades etc... isnt a viable way to make money as your margins will get smaller. The simplest way is Item Degradation. I didnt have much trouble in Stalker SoC with carrying a few damaged things to sell off (Running between a battle site transporting guns to sell allot of the time)

Of course, this draws types of players apart more, the ones that take time to manage their inventory, make sure that their Armour, guns and gear is upto scratch will have the advantage of being always ready, but will be costly if they arnt a crafter (Witch also means they will lack some other skill set for the most) while the player that just scavenges gear will always have gear, weapons, ammo and a fair bit of money to throw around, allowing them to depend more on other NPC's

[screeg]

You make a good point.  I personally don't think crafting for profit is a good mechanic.  I like crafted items to (a) be better than anything available to buy or loot (weapons and armor), and/or (b) free to make instead of buy (PSI boosters, healing).  If you take those two advantages, then throw in selling them for a lot of money too, it's overpowered.

I actually like inventory management, but you've got to draw a line someplace.  This game already has extensive crafting, alchemy, electronics, dozens of different ingredients, and salvaged junk.  Add in disposable lockpicks, batteries, incrementally different (same model, tiny difference in stats) armors and weapons, and now, finally, degrading armors and weapons, and what you have is a warehouse management simulator, not an RPG.

[WolveNZ]

Well, look at the crafting though the eyes of a Merchant, he would of gone about, buying tools, parts and the such and creating the stuff he sells (unless its stuff previously acquired)

What you have, inst a warehouse management simulator, but an RPG that allows for freedom, But freedoms always optional. I personally like to make money without killing people, apart from people that already dont like me. But one to his own I guess