Dev Log #25: Game Economy Changes

[Elhazzared]

I think most people felt the same problem with the crafting. It asks for too much skills to craft anything at all and by the time you can craft what you were trying to, you already have a much better item and to craft something than what you already have it's many more levels ahead of your current skill... It has been sugested before that items stopped requiring a skill and rather the quallity of the item was based on the skill ofthe crafter but this idea was rejected so I guess the only way to solve this is to severely tone down the crafting system requirements.

[Eliasfrost]

Basically, crafters should be able to craft better items than what you normally can get, to an extent of course. The reason for this is that when you spend points into a skill, it's an investment and you invest in something to benefit from it. But when the items you find or buy are a lot better than the items that you craft with your precious skill points, crafting becomes inadequate. If crafting could be used to improve existing items with new mods, it would be much more beneficial and useful.

[Elhazzared]

I agree but therein lies the problem. Even if you could use crafting to just mod a weapon you already have it would just ask you for all of the skills each individual component has plus the extra to put the several parts together which would make it not work again. I still belive the best way would be for crafting items to lose skill requirements and instead your skill being determinat in the quallity of what you craft. That not being an option the best one is still to simply tone down the required skills a lot, I'm not going to go over numbers because i'd have to test and try to figure out what numbers would give an approximated value because quite frankly I'd rip my hair off dealing with merchants not buying everything and weight limits. but I'd risk to say that based on the huge disparity of what you can craft and what you can buy from what I remember it would maybe need a 50% requirement reduction. Again hard to be precises on any level without some proper testing of what is available on the market at my level and what I can craft (proccess repeated through various levels in order to get a good grip on the disparity).

[Styg]

In the future I will introduce crafting components that will not be available for merchant generated items or are very rare. Actually, I already started with this process in the current patch - for instance crawler poison caltrops and bear traps (which are very useful, btw) are very rarely found on merchants.

[Elhazzared]

I can understand that Styg but let me put it in this perspective. How worth is it going to be to add a very rare component to a gun (assuming you even have the skill to put it on the gun if it's something that rare) if at the end of the day the gun's damage is going to be that much inferior to the damage of a gun that the merchant sells me?

[Styg]

I can understand that Styg but let me put it in this perspective. How worth is it going to be to add a very rare component to a gun (assuming you even have the skill to put it on the gun if it's something that rare) if at the end of the day the gun's damage is going to be that much inferior to the damage of a gun that the merchant sells me?

If you found some low quality component early game, crafted a gun out of it and then traveled to say Junkyard and compared it to the higher level gear there, that's not enough to draw a conclusion that all crafted gear is inherently worse than what's available for purchase.

The equipment that the merchant sells is typically of the same level as the components the merchant sells. The equipment that the merchant sells is generated by using the same blueprints that the player uses when crafting and is crafted out of components of the appropriate level. So you see, the crafted equipment is not inferior in stats, it's actually, on average, the same level. Same goes for loot you find.

That about puts the crafting and purchasing on the same level power wise. The reason why it would be beneficial to a character to spend points on tech skills is as I stated in the previous posts - blueprints and components that are exclusive for crafting, or just very rarely found in a finished product. Not to mention that the crafting is both a cheaper way to obtain gear, can create profit when selling and can be used to craft consumables and such.

[Elhazzared]

I think you are missing te point. Let's say I've just reached the junkyard after getting the quest to go there. I get there, find the components to make a gun... They are all much higher skill than I can use. Now let's say I have all teh components and they are exactly of the skill level that I have in crafting. Whatever I craft the merchant will have much better version. In fact so much better there isn't even a base for comparison... That is were we are getting here. If we grab on components of the exact level we can craft nd then go to the merchant, the merchant just sells better weapons or armor altogether. Even if you add something rare that gives it some sort of bonus. The weapon base damage or the armor base defense is still going to be much lesser than what you can buy relativelly to what you can craft even if the components you have are exactly on the same skill level as you are.

[Styg]

I think you are missing te point. Let's say I've just reached the junkyard after getting the quest to go there. I get there, find the components to make a gun... They are all much higher skill than I can use. Now let's say I have all teh components and they are exactly of the skill level that I have in crafting. Whatever I craft the merchant will have much better version. In fact so much better there isn't even a base for comparison... That is were we are getting here. If we grab on components of the exact level we can craft nd then go to the merchant, the merchant just sells better weapons or armor altogether. Even if you add something rare that gives it some sort of bonus. The weapon base damage or the armor base defense is still going to be much lesser than what you can buy relativelly to what you can craft even if the components you have are exactly on the same skill level as you are.

Merchants have a certain level range for items they sell. In case of Junkyard merchants it's typically 6-10 for most categories. Depending when you arrive in Junkyard you might not be able to craft gear as high level as that immediately (or you might, depending on intelligence stat). But by the time you're done with quests there and the Old Junkyard you will be able to AND you're probably going to pick up some higher level components from there (final areas of Old Junkyard give items of up to level 12) to craft something even better.

[Elhazzared]

That might be correct but let's put things into perspective. If you've finished the junkyard and can finally make beter stuff than what is currently in the junkyard. Then you are just aboutto move to a new area and that new area will have much better stuff to sell than what you can craft currently.

Crafting should always be keeping you ahead of the curve since you are investing your points into it.

[LazyMonk]

I have a different experience from crafting.
Usually the items i craft are usually superior to the ones sold by the merchants.
Also i am able to craft armors and weapons with the specific characteristics that i seek.
Sometimes you cant find that riot armor with an overcoat that is so fashionable this time of the year,
and there isn't a better solution to being able to craft it yourself.

Crafting should always be keeping you ahead of the curve since you are investing your points into it.

I am not sure i agree with this but this happens already in game.
Going through the GMS compound with a suit of metal armor feels like cheating.
I invite everyone to try it.

[Elhazzared]

I am unsure of how you manage to do this. In my personal experience and from what I've seen from most people it's impossible to craft something better than what is sold in the area unless you've already finished with that area (you already leveled enough to have the skills for those components).

And if you are unsure that crafting should keep you ahead of the curve then I cannot imagine what you think crafting is for. Sure in some cases like making grenades or psi booters and similar stuff serves to make you some money or just to save you money on that kind of stuff. But when we talk about combat gear it must be something to keep you ahead of the curve. It makes no sense that whatever equipment you can make is worse than what is being sold. Then why bother making it in the first place? The natural thing to do is go to the new area, buy the best equipment you can find and use it for that eare... sure you can't aford a whole new set of equipment but you can get enough, usually just getting the best weapon does the trick, the rest eitehr drops or you buy after a couple quests there anyway.

As for trying it. I have done it in the previous version and aside the explosives requiring more skills now, there is no change to teh skill requirments for the equipment from all the dev logs. Also people continue to complain about it so it must still be as it was. So I will not try it because I don't like the new economy system. I don't have a problem with many improvements it has brought, but weight limits and limiting how much merchants buy from you is enough to have me running around from merchant to merchant just trying to sell my stuff and getting incredibly bored and frustated... This not to mention several trips to the same areas to get loot cause I couldn't carry more and even getting slowed down by the loot I carry... One of the major points about this game for me was exactly that it was foregoing all of this busy work which served no other purpose other than frustate a player. I know Styg wants to just limit what players pick up, force them to make a choice of what to carry and what to leave behind but in the majority of cases I'd say players won't do that. Players will just do whatever it takes to bring everything back and sell everything and eventually they will get frustated and stop playing at all. Because I know that would happen to me I'd rather just wait for some update where either that has been removed or has an option to be turned off.

[LazyMonk]

I am unsure of how you manage to do this. In my personal experience and from what I've seen from most people it's impossible to craft something better than what is sold in the area unless you've already finished with that area (you already leveled enough to have the skills for those components).

On my next playthrough i am going to note down both the stats of vendor items and the ones i craft adding both the location and my skill levels.

And if you are unsure that crafting should keep you ahead of the curve then I cannot imagine what you think crafting is for.

Oops, i am sorry i clearly misunderstood you there. I thought you meant that your character was going to be ahead of the curve, not your gear.

This not to mention several trips to the same areas to get loot cause I couldn't carry more and even getting slowed down by the loot I carry... One of the major points about this game for me was exactly that it was foregoing all of this busy work which served no other purpose other than frustate a player.

I am not trying to be funny, but that sounds like ocd. Cant you just let that loot go?
Do you really need the edge that selling that extra loot would give you?

[Elhazzared]

It isn't a case of OCD though I know what you mean. I have actually laughed about how people that have OCD sometimes react (yeah not really a nice thing to do but hey, I'm not perfect). It's just that for me a great part of the fun of the game is exactly killing everything and getting the loot, if I don't get it all it starts getting meh for me.

[LazyMonk]

It isn't a case of OCD though I know what you mean. I have actually laughed about how people that have OCD sometimes react (yeah not really a nice thing to do but hey, I'm not perfect). It's just that for me a great part of the fun of the game is exactly killing everything and getting the loot, if I don't get it all it starts getting meh for me.

And what if you recycled the less worthy loot into repair kits, that are much lighter and still useful?

[Elhazzared]

It's just not really worth it and most of the times I don't really use crafting. The way I like to go is full on psionic with a crossbow and some persuasion to get things my way. Stealth for guaranteed first turn as well as lockpicking and hacking to just get everything.

Still how much worth are repair kits now? From what Styg said on the dev notes it seamed like only the incredibly valuable items are worth repairing before selling so I'd probably end up with tons of kits and no where to spend them. Another problem lies with the encuberance which would have me losing lots of movement points (maybe action? not sure if they are affected as well)... I just dislike those two things and it seams it will be just better for me to avoid the game altogether until both of those are either removed or optional.