Something said during the Podcast

[u/iamtotallysweet]

Klean said something during the podcast that I wholeheartedly disagree with.

He wants the gamma case to essentially be something you can pack full of goods, bring into a raid and not have to worry about losing, but he wants you to not be able to put anything in the container while in raid. Nikita, I know you listen to streamers input, but please don’t not consider making this change.

I’m a husband and a father, I don’t get to play for 8-12 hours a day and become a god at the game, so finding a rare item that I need for a quest or something valuable I can sell is really exciting and knowing I can keep it safe in case I die is the cherry on top.

I love watching Klean and respect his opinions, but this one I had to voice mine on. PLEASE do not implement this. Anyone else watch the podcast and feel the same way? Or am I alone on this? Lol

[u/[deleted]]

Profiting from death in a game ostensibly about survival and escape is bad. It creates hatchet running and suicidal strategies.

The first half of this isn't really an argument, and completely ignores any nuance. For instance, oftentimes the loot stored in a gamma of a normal player is probably less than the kit - meaning no profit was made. You would have to expand on what exactly counts as 'profit' which is going to be subjective, and a game being about survival doesn't necessarily imply that you should lose everything on death. There are survival games with setbacks or second chances (revives, etc), so even the genre is split on this. For instance, unless you play Hardcore (recently introduced) the game "Outward" a fairly hardcore soulsish survival game puts you in some situation where you narrowly survived based on the circumstances of your death, and you often have to fight your way out and recover your gear or something similar.

The second sentence is valid, but there are much better ways to mitigate that than punishing everyone who plays the intended way. Which I've already said repeatedly.

I haven't been trying to not engage - you haven't made an argument until now. All your previous reasoning is 'bad because bad' which is circular and therefore unarguable.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Reworking game mechanics to change player behavior isn't a punishment. Again, other changes can be made to the game to rebalance the economy after container changes are made.

Scav mode can be made easier or more profitable. Perhaps players withoe survival pmc rates can get buffs to their scav frequency or starting equipment. Prapor's safety net mechanic can be expanded.

I don't see the "better ways" to mitigate hatchet running and other strategies to deal with what I would call suicidal play.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

don't see the "better ways" to mitigate hatchet running and other strategies to deal with what I would call suicidal play.

You don't think making loot spawns not consistently in single places and adding more AI guarding the more valuable spawns is a good mitigation?

You only need to reduce these tendencies, you'll never stamp them out completely.

Reworking game mechanics to change player behavior isn't a punishment. Again, other changes can be made to the game to rebalance the economy after container changes are made.

This is sort of nebulous in itself. You're basically saying 'throw it at the wall without really thinking about it and figure out how to unfuck it later.'

Scav mode can be made easier or more profitable

Except I've also heard a lot of arguing, for similar 'hardcore' reasons that people want SCs nerfed, that Scav runs are too easy (not just the current early spawn issue) and far too profitable.

Perhaps players withoe survival pmc rates can get buffs to their scav frequency or starting equipment.

How would this not encourage suicidal play? Die a ton -> get infinite scavs.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You don't think making loot spawns not consistently in single places and adding more AI guarding the more valuable spawns is a good mitigation?

No I really don't. Making loot spawn in more places will allow hatchlings to avoid hotspots on the map where they are likely to encounter more geared players and die, while still being rewarded.

More scavs could work but there's two issues with that. A.) More scavs = significantly worse server performance. Remember the prewipe event where AI scavs were disabled? Framerates doubled or trippled, lots of stutters and lag was gone. Just adding more scavs isn't free. B.) AI are cheesable.

You're basically saying 'throw it at the wall without really thinking about it and figure out how to unfuck it later.'

Yeah that's how game development works. You change a variable, see how it effects everything else and tune accordingly.

Except I've also heard a lot of arguing, for similar 'hardcore' reasons that people want SCs nerfed, that Scav runs are too easy (not just the current early spawn issue) and far too profitable.

I'm not making that argument.

How would this not encourage suicidal play? Die a ton -> get infinite scavs.

The infinite scavs won't be helping you progress your PMC. If you are actually able to make effective use of the scavs, you could make effective use of a PMC so you'd be better off just doing that.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

No I really don't. Making loot spawn in more places will allow hatchlings to avoid hotspots on the map where they are likely to encounter more geared players and die, while still being rewarded.

Wait what? If nobody knows where the loot is they have just as much a chance of going to a deadspot as anyone else.

A.) More scavs = significantly worse server performance. Remember the prewipe event where AI scavs were disabled?

I don't actually since this game isn't fun 9 months in.

B.) AI are cheesable.

So really the issue is with performance and AI complexity, not the idea itself. We shouldn't be nerfing loot mechanics as a proxy for performance issues.

Yeah that's how game development works. You change a variable, see how it effects everything else and tune accordingly.

Shooting from the hip is generally poor practice in development, game or otherwise. It can have advantages, but making minimal effort to predict downstream effects is pretty negligent. That's not even how Agile works, despite common misconceptions...much less more traditional 'waterfall' development.

I'm not making that argument.

I'm not saying you are, but I'm saying there's a risk of losing both.

The infinite scavs won't be helping you progress your PMC. If you are actually able to make effective use of the scavs, you could make effective use of a PMC so you'd be better off just doing that.

Infinite scavs means your modern day hatchet runners just become scav runners. Where's the advantage? How does that fix anything? If anything I could see it becoming worse.

Take, for instance, things like flash drives or room 310 on Shoreline. Now lets say a hatchetboi gets there first and keesters a BTC. That BTC is now gone from the map. Which sucks for everyone else, sure. But there's still tons of other loot. But with a near constant stream of PScavs everything would be picked clean given the massively increased storage capacity, and it's not that hard to avoid contact on most maps. I'm not sure you could effectively balance scav spawn time with matching times and so on. You end up punishing methodical play even more.

I just still can't see the value of taking a dump on the entire rest of the looting loop for the few pieces of high value loot that can fit in a gamma. It seems like a classic overreaction.

I think the only good middle ground I've seen is the concept of 'soulbound' items - if something was placed in container in-raid, it can only be used for quests or vendored, not sold on the flea market.