[2023] Crafting/ early game experience is too much at the mercy of RNG.

It's a good thing that this is changing pretty dramatically in A21, then.

Granted it'll still be RNG, But, Having the skill and having higher ranks of the skill directly increases your chance of finding the associated book type so you can progress through the crafting tiers.

Originally posted by Mithrandir:

Originally posted by Shurenai: It's a good thing that this is changing pretty dramatically in A21, then.

Granted it'll still be RNG, But, Having the skill and having higher ranks of the skill directly increases your chance of finding the associated book type so you can progress through the crafting tiers.

IMO it's a balance issue, as crafting weapon/armor is pretty much futile compared to finding them in loot and traders atm. All because they're quite faster/easier to find than the parts needed to craft them.

We'll see if this balance issue is still there in A21.

"Perks slightly affect the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world. It isn't a significant bonus but it does prevent the player from being screwed over."

Parts are affected by the skills too. And the part cost of recipes may have changed now.

To begin with, The purpose of these changes are to get people crafting, and to stop ignoring crafting entirely to go loot because of that mantra that goes around, 'Looting is indisputably better than crafting'.

Originally posted by Shockwave:

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜: Except it doesn't work like that.

Other than it saying it works exactly like that.....

Except it doesn't.

Originally posted by A21 Dev Thread: Learn By Reading System

• 23 new skills to govern crafting (photo in gallery below)
  
• 23 new magazines added to loot
  
• Perks no longer unlock recipes or govern crafting at all
  
• The only schematics that still unlock recipes are mod attachments.
  
• Crafting skill is increased by finding and reading magazines
  
• Skill increases unlock recipes at certain points as well as increase quality of crafting for items with quality
  
• Each tech level has a separate range in the skill spectrum so that you have to work up through primitive tech and then iron tech and then steel tech and being able to craft a blue stone axe no long means you automatically can also craft a blue iron axe.
  
• Some skills have 100 levels but others have less depending on how many unlocks there are for recipes and quality tiers.
  
• A new skill page showing your progress has been added to the player interface (photo in gallery below)
  
• Skill magazines can be found, bought, and/or received as quest rewards. The topic of the magazine matches the location you would expect to find it in the world.
  
• Perks slightly affect the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world. It isn't a significant bonus but it does prevent the player from being screwed over.
  
• When you max out a skill, that slight probability bonus granted by perks for finding the corresponding magazine for that skill drops off. The magazine will still show up randomly in loot but no longer have a boost. The probability boost for finding matching parts will remain.

Nowhere in there does it say what you said.

But there is a LOT it doesn't say, Because we've only been given previews and teasers on the subject. The above is NOT the whole picture, And the reason you're getting the thing you said from it is because you're filling in the blanks and making assumptions.

But let me remind you, This is a co-op game too; Co-op is a major intended style of play, And they already made looting work in A20(might've been earlier than A20) such that all looting in a party is based off of the person with the highest loot score- EXPLICITLY to side step the issues of "Well because A has better looting skill, if I loot anything we miss out on loot."... So why do you expect them to have not come up with a similar solution to "Well because A is doing all the looting, I never get stuff for me"?

Assumptions are the basis for almost every complaint I've seen about the new crafting progression system. So many people are ASSUMING it's going to be bad for co-op play because the teased bits don't explicitly say otherwise.

Originally posted by Shockwave: "Perks slightly affect the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world. It isn't a significant bonus but it does prevent the player from being screwed over."

To me this says if my byddy the looter is speced into snipers and spears and he loots a crate, he will be MORE likely to get crafting books and parts for spears and snipers and LESS likely to parts and crafting books for shotguns....

Which is EXACTLY what I said. It seems like in order to raise my chances of getting MY things I have to be the one to open the container.

It does not reduce the chance of other loot; You just find more of the thing.

So if you would get
1 sniper 1 sledgehammer and 1 knife book, but you're specced into snipers, you'd get 2/1/1.

Note the phrasing.

"Perks slightly affect the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world. It isn't a significant bonus but it does prevent the player from being screwed over."

At no point does it say "More of THIS, And Less of THAT".

And again, You're still making the assumption that TFP did not do the same thing with having these skills that they did with Loot Stage; In a party, it may, and likely does, take account of the skills of ALL PLAYERS IN THE PARTY when determining which books to give.

We just don't have all the details yet to be able to KNOW that it DEFINITELY makes co-op play worse. But there IS reason to believe they would have considered something like this and accounted for it.