[2022] Trader quest wiped my base!

Well.. For one, The game doesn't reset a POI until you reach the location AND interact with the giant floating exclamation point. Plenty of time to recognize "Oh, huh, this is my base. Maybe I should not do this quest"

For two, If you have a land claim block or a bed roll IN the POI you have received a quest in, The game won't allow you to begin the quest after reaching the location.

Third, The POI is reset because it's entirely possible you may have cleared and previously looted the building- Meaning if the quest starts and the POI is -not- reloaded, it would not be a completeable quest. -- It's also possible for zombies to have damaged the POI, either wandering hordes or if the player had used it as a horde base, or a number of other possibilities.. So, the POI is refreshed to it's initial state, to bypass all those possibilities and ensure the quest is doable.

I won't say you 'should have known' that it would reset your base...But, You should have known that the quest would do SOMETHING to the place in order to set up the environment for the quest. Also you probably should have had your bedroll and/or land claim inside your base, as it is, yknow, your base. I can see taking the bedroll with you, perhaps, to respawn nearby while out and about.. But there really isn't an excuse for the land claim block. It exists for a reason.

I'm sorry that you experienced this problem, though.

Originally posted by Vresiberba:

Originally posted by Shurenai: Well.. For one, The game doesn't reset a POI until you reach the location AND interact with the giant floating exclamation point. Plenty of time to recognize "Oh, huh, this is my base. Maybe I should not do this quest"

Don't know why I owe you an explanation, but my base was in the back and the exclamation mark was on the porch at the front. I didn't even realise the building was my base. I also did NOT [because CAPS baby] know it would reset ANYTHING so clicking the exclamation mark did absolutely not make me go "uh-oh". Why should it.

Originally posted by Shurenai: For two, If you have a land claim block or a bed roll IN the POI you have received a quest in, The game won't allow you to begin the quest after reaching the location.

That is meta knowledge I couldn't possible have known beforehand. Also I DID say it was my initial base and I had moved on to another location [along with my bedroll and cube] but still used it because it had a cement mixer there. It doesn't any more, by the way. After the reset it's now a furnace in that position so not only did I lose all my concrete, stone, sand and cement, I lost the mixer as well >.<

Originally posted by Shurenai: Third, The POI is reset because it's entirely possible you may have cleared and previously looted the building- Meaning if the quest starts and the POI is -not- reloaded, it would not be a completeable quest. -- It's also possible for zombies to have damaged the POI, either wandering hordes or if the player had used it as a horde base, or a number of other possibilities.. So, the POI is refreshed to it's initial state, to bypass all those possibilities and ensure the quest is doable.

Again, this is meta knowledge I couldn't possibly have known unless clearly stated in-game.

Originally posted by Shurenai: I won't say you 'should have known' that it would reset your base...But, You should have known that the quest would do SOMETHING to the place in order to set up the environment for the quest.

Actually, I didn't, because why would I. The last time I played was in A16 and this mechanic wasn't in that version. How should I have know it would not only reset the location but also not return it to the previous state, which is what I thought would happen AFTER realising the location changed. I thought the game would store the location like an instance and return my base after I turned in the quest.

In any event, this is a HUGE no-no, you don't design a game to work like this because. well... And if you can't solve the quests any other way and you absolutely and stubbornly want to put something that destroys player-built assets in the game world, then for God's sake let the player know. Have a HUGE pop-up before activating the quest that "HOUSE_LEFT_PLAINS_003A is about to go bye-bye and if you live there, whatever you do DON'T ACCEPT THIS QUEST!!!!".

So you never looked at any other side of your base? you never came at it from any other direction but the back side? Even if the base was in the back, If there was a bedroll or land claim block intersecting or within the POI, it would not allow the quest to initiate.

I get that it's your first base, but, chances are you cleared grass, or trees, or rocks, or bushes in the process of making your base there. You almost certainly had to have cleared the building itself to not be bothered by sleepers while in your little base, if your base was within the bounds of the POI. You missed all of the telltale signs that it was your inhabited area.

Not to mention that, being your base, you almost certainly have a map waypoint there; so, that both quest and normal waypoints lead to the same building should've been a bit of a tip off -- If not, then you likely navigate by landmarks, which is a perfectly valid navigation method, but kinda goes right back to how you would have/should have been aware of the path back to your own base from the trader and been able to pick up on the land marks that hey, this is my base.

On the topic of "Meta Knowledge" I will grant that the ingame journal does not explicitly state that a POI will be reset during a quest, However, The journal entries for both the land claim block and bedroll cover their functionality, which includes how only one will function at a time; Always the most recently placed, and both will prevent the respawn of zombies and allow you to claim an area- Both things you would want in your base, to help keep it safe and a sanctuary from the zombies so you can do your thing in peace. Both the bedroll and the land claim also make map markers of their own when placed. The tutorial has you craft a bedroll, and the quest text tells you that it'll lead you back home, and acts as a respawn point should you die. Yet more reason for a bedroll in your base. And you start with a land claim block on your hotbar.. So you would, reasonably, put that in your base to claim the area...Yet you placed neither in your base.

Even in A16, It did something if i recall- Spawning a bunch of zombies into the building, or the lootable object, even if it didn't reset the entire building. (And I thought that in 16.x was when they implemented the area resets? But I could be wrong.) So yes- The thought that it'd do something to the building reasonably should've been on your mind.

More importantly, It's been two alphas since the last time you played, "I wonder how quests have changed since then" should've prolly been up there in the list of thoughts on your first few quests; And that's assuming this was literally the -first- quest you've accepted since A16, which I find more than a bit unlikely..But, not impossible.

Resetting the area also prevents a ton of exploits of the quest itself. Going through the building and planting traps ahead of time, flattening the building so that the object you need to look for has no choice to just spawn where you can see it; Likewise for all the zombies just spawning where you can mow them down with ease, and a bunch of other unwanted behavior.

I'm not saying the quest system couldn't use a warning prompt; Or that at the very least, the ingame journal should mention that quests reset POI's.

I'm just saying that there must have been a LOT of flags between you and activating that quest marker, and it was your own inattention and lack of forethought that lead into this situation. You didn't even check your map to see where the quest icon was, which would've shown you that it was right on top of your base, or anything.

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

Originally posted by Vresiberba: How is this even possible to slip through testing?!

BTW - this didn't "slip through testing", lol :) And it won't change. It will stay this way. The reason is because the game can't tell if you have built a aabase in a POI. Because what would qualify as a "base"? You can't just count any player made blocks as a base, because lots of people use wood frames to climb and move around while exploring. So the program doesn't know what you consider to be a "base". Live and learn. :)

With the exception of a placed bedroll and/or a placed land claim block, yep.

Edit: To elaborate slightly: With the exception of all semi-entity blocks, like the bedroll, forge, cement mixer, land claim, work bench etc which have extra functionality; The game has no way of tracking whether a given block is from a POI, or player placed. A block is a block is a block.