[2022] Alpha 21 Learn by looting system seems to break groups

Originally posted by Shockwave: Maybe I don't understand the learn by looting system (which seems utterly terrible compared to the current system) but doesn't it simply break groups?

Not necessarily. It will require groups to rethink their dynamics but the magazines only govern recipes. So if there is someone in your group who would love to be the craft person, all group members can feed them the magazines and they can craft everything for the group. In fact, there will be zero incentive for two people to split reading the same magazines because that would seriously slow down the recipe progression. Why have two or three people read the shotgun magazine so that everyone can only craft a green tier pipe shotgun when you could have one person read them all and craft pump shotguns for everyone? I think as people play the system and realize this, the dynamic will change and magazine sharing for maximizing recipe learning will naturally develop.

I play with a group of 3. Instead of getting crafting skills by perking into them now we have to find books? and if two people want to perk into the same crafting thing doesn't that mean they have to split the books or one waits until on person has the max level?

There is no real reason for two people to want to perk into the same crafting thing. Divide the crafting duties up if multiple people want something to craft. Give me the farming and cooking mags, you can have the tool and workstation mags, and that guy can read the weapon and vehicle mags. It just requires communicating about it as a group. Teams will learn very quickly not to have multiple people reading the same magazines if they don't understand that beforehand.

What if one person reads all the books for shotguns, one person reads all the books for snipers and one person reads all the books for pistols....

But the sniper guy is also the guy with lucky looter and the shotgun guy is the guy with the mining perks and is the miner/basebuilder and doesn't quest as much. Doesn't that mean that the only parts the GROUP is going to get is sniper parts?

No, regardless of what you perk into you find a wide range of magazine titles. The perk bonus only makes it so that you don't NEVER find the magazine or parts you need. In the past when books governed skills and recipes you could go for weeks and weeks without every finding the book you need and be stuck. That won't happen in the new system but at the same time it isn't going to cause you to only find predominately one type of magazine.

Teams will actually have an advantage over single players if they manage their magazine sharing well since they will be finding many more magazines total each day than just one person ever could. As long as they talk about who is going to the craftsperson for what and then follow that strategy I think you will find teams really synergizing well and having fun getting the right magazine title to the right specialist on the team.

What a ridiculous system. The amount of weapon parts in the world is governed by the crafting skill of the guy out looting? And when they max out their skill they can no longer find books for another person in their group (the boost goes away) that may want them?

Learn by Looting is an unfortunate moniker. I wish Madmole had said "Learn by Reading" instead. It isn't really that ridiculous when you think about the fact that you are gathering old world knowledge from scraps of books you can glean. As I mentioned, the boost is not even really noticeable. Many will probably send in bug reports that their boost isn't working. It can make sense that someone who is an expert in shotguns is going to be better at recognizing shotgun parts that are salvageable whereas someone else might look at it as unusable junk. Just treat it that every time YOU find scrap metal in a container it was probably a useful part that an expert would recognize but to you it was just scrap metal.

I wonder what will happen when people max out all their magazines in a category and then still find them. Do you think they will think the game is broken? The idea that once you max you will no longer find any of that magazine is just an assumption. The feature description doesn't claim that at all. You will still find any and all magazines in loot regardless of which ones you no longer need. The boost dropping off simply means the protection from never find ANY of that particular magazine will be lifted.

There are simple ways to improve the crafting system without reinventing it (again).

There is zero reinvention to this. It is all evolutionary from past alphas. Having recipes unlocked by reading stuff you find in loot is not some completely new idea that never had a presence in the game. These aren't all new completely revised recipes. They are the same recipes and the only change was to move learning them from the perks to magazines. That is a pretty simple change.

You can call it a complete re-invention but the fact is the game is still developing and every iteration leads to the next. I understand that there is fear involved with change because what if you or someone doesn't like the change? That is always possible but it is also part and parcel to the whole early access to development builds gig. It is what we signed up for and I think it is always exciting to witness and adapt to the changes.

I think the only people who will be adversely affected by this change will be selfish groups who don't communicate and coordinate their specialties, single players who don't like to loot, and min-maxers who won't like that their crafting recipes will be controlled by random factors instead of their own speedy efforts. Most teams and individuals will enjoy all the new magazines and gradually learning new knowledge as they find it out in the zombie infested world.

Cheers!

Originally posted by Glue: My biggest issue is finding a book that you don't need/want, and having to lug it around with you until you can give it to your friend that needs it. Its super annoying with the magazines and recipe's as is, this will only clog the inventory more.

Inventory management is seen as tedious by some and a fun puzzle of prioritization by others. There is nothing the developers can do to make inventory management palatable for everyone because someone will still find it disagreeable. Backpack mods are a legitimate solution for people who don't like the inventory management game. The vanilla game places value on managing a limited inventory but if you don't find that fun like many people don't then you can rejoice that the devs made the game so easily moddable for the sake of different definitions of fun.

It could be a good change, but from what we have heard, it sounds like its going to be a mess.

Are you listening to people who have actually played it or are you listening to people who are making assumptions and speculating from a viewpoint of being afraid that it might suck? I know, without a doubt, that some people will hate the change and others will love it and others will be ambivalent. As a feature it works as intended and is a clear amalgamation of many of the ideas they have developed in the past. It really is the definition of a refined version of all their past ideas. You may not end up enjoying it but that doesn't mean it is a mess. It just means-- you don't like it.

I don't like the idea of what I find being affected by a book. If I find a pump shotgun day one, I feel lucky. If I find a pump shotgun after finding the same pipe shotguns for the first 7 days, it feels contrived.

What you find is not affected by a book-- at all. This is one of those false assumptions that color the perspective about the actual feature. What you find is affected by your gamestage (experience level) and your perks that you intentionally choose to advance (skill level). How does it not make sense that a seasoned scavenger who is an expert in shotguns will be able to sift through junk and come up with the right parts they can configure into a workable pump shotgun whereas someone less experienced finds a bunch of scrap metal? That is standard RPG progression. Sure, if you understand the math and mechanics under the hood and focus on that then it is going to feel contrived but that is true for any role-playing game. If you focus on the mechanics it will be dry and uninspired but if you put yourself into the role and focus on the idea that you are becoming more experienced then it becomes more of a story of survival and dominance in a world trying to kill you.

At any rate, magazines and books do not alter your chances of finding stuff. That isn't how it works. And although perking into a skill will affect your chances of finding stuff it is a very subtle change that mainly prevents you from never finding the things that align with your perk so that you don't feel like you wasted points on being a shotgun specialist but can't ever find any magazines that allow you to craft better and better shotguns. Finally, the bonus only affects finding magazines and parts. It does not affect whether you find more or less whole working shotguns.

I hate that TFP feel the need to rework systems over and over, always leaving off on a worse version. They are without a doubt the most incompetent, directionless devs I have ever seen. Until they can prove me wrong by sticking with an idea and refining it before moving to Beta, I will not change that opinion.

Well, you are entitled to your opinion but many others do find that the changes are for the better and are a refinement and not just a pointless change. As I said, there will always be someone who doesn't like a change and therefore sees it as trash but the crafting change that is coming in A21 truly and objectively is literally a refinement of several of their past ideas and not even a complete overhaul of the A20 system.

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜:

Originally posted by Katitoff: I'm making a very simple point, game can and is played in coop ever since alpha 1 and balance should take that into account.
If you don't want to take into account multiplayer in your balancing, why you even allow for multiplayer in the first place? Does not make much sense now, does it?

I've been arguing on the official forums about this, by asking to make separate balance rules for Single Player vs. Cooperative. I even setup a poll for which two dozen people voted... and in the end nobody wanted separate rules for SP and MP/COOP because they argued it would take too much of the devs time.

Oh well... I tried. :meepfail:

It is also because there really is no difference between single player and multiplayer. Your single player game is simply a multiplayer game that you are playing solo. You could invite others to join your single player game at any time. All of the worries about team play with the changes to the crafting system are unfounded worries rather than legitimate actual experience based feedback. Everyone will be able to weigh in on any adverse effects once experimental starts and people can get their hands on it. But until then doom and gloom speculations about how multiplayer will be destroyed by this change don't hold any water because-- no jars. ;-)