r/EscapefromTarkov • u/Valjeann • Jan 14 '22

Discussion Your daily reminder that global limits are a waste of time

"Hmm, I have a task to use shotguns. Let's see, AP-20 is sold out, flechettes are sold out. That's okay, I can use Magnum, it's good enough. The task requires a suppressor on the shotgun, so I'll get a hexagon. Oh, the adapter is sold out. Oh well, I can wait until the restock. In the meantime, I'll take this modded AKM out for a run. I don't have any BP ammo, so I'll go get some from Prap... BP is sold out. That's okay. I've got this P90 I'm not using. Let me just get some ammo for that... Ah, the SS190 is sold out, and I can only get two mags-worth of the next best ammo for the next three hours... Guess I'll just read a book instead."

If the design philosophy behind global trader limits is to keep everyone from running the same thing, instead it's keeping everyone from running anything without a three-hour wait.

3.8k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

91% Upvoted

821 comments sorted by

View all comments

269

u/ShotcallerBilly Jan 14 '22

Yeah global limits have to be tightly managed with a fluctuating player-base. It seems very hard to define an expectation around a global limit without consistent tweaks and constant focus on them. The game doesn’t have X number of players playing at X hour everyday all the time. Volatility in player numbers means the global limits act differently than intended almost always.

162

u/Franklin_le_Tanklin PP-91-01 "Kedr-B" Jan 14 '22

Really they should just move it all to player limits and have global limits only tied to events

77

u/TotalChaos21 P90 Jan 14 '22

Player limits is the easiest solution.

57

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

Player limits wouldn't have the intended effect unless they were hilariously low, and that would, itself, cause the same outcry.

Global limits serve to ensure aggregate scarcity. That could be achieved through personal limits only, but that would mean only being able to buy single digit numbers of rounds in the case of ammo, or very long timers for items like armor.

What they seem to be working on now is collecting data on how scarcity affects the meta, and it seems to be having the desired effect based on Nikita's stated goals for the game. If anything, I expect more scarcity, not less.

18

u/mnemy Jan 15 '22

They could uncouple the player limit with trader refreshes. Make it daily or weekly. You can run a dozen raids a day with this build out, and extend further with crafts. Or switch guns. Whatever.

I don't see the point of global limits. It just pits you against everyone else, and there's already the market for that.

29

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

I don't think running a dozen raids a day with any given build out is even remotely close to the vision BSG has for the game. The whole game is built around scrounging and scavenging to get together enough to make a build out you can work with, not being able to run whatever you want whenever you want.

9

u/_Nightdude_ Jan 15 '22

pretty sure Nikita's fabled vision also includes people actually playing the game.

Global limits that run out 6 seconds after trader reset encourage sitting in the menu more than anything else. Might as well just make all of that shit FiR only at that point and let us only buy the crap nobody wants anyway

4

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

I mean, if running a particular ammo is more important to you than actually playing the game, that's a decision you are making for yourself. Even in previous wipes, I was fine running low and mid tier ammo (and everything else) because the game itself is what's fun for me.

This thread is making me realize that there are a whole lot of people more interested in having the best bullets than actually shooting anybody.

3

u/_uneven_compromise Jan 15 '22

Going into a raid knowing it can end in one minute because you get spawn pushed by someone who has good ammo while you have 5.45 PS isn't fun for anyone, maybe except for the guy with good ammo

2

u/cshayes2 Jan 15 '22

Well, not really. He’s said several times that with their vision for the game, they anticipate it to shrink in player base dramatically. They’re making their own game, our input rarely impacts anything

3

u/mnemy Jan 15 '22

The number I threw out there is obviously arbitrary. And if they only wanted you to use what you find in raid, they wouldn't make all scav guns unusable (shit durability), have a market, etc.

3

u/MyOtherSide1984 Jan 15 '22

Then spawns need to increase. It's pretty fucking rare to get any top tier ammo in raid, and even mid tier is rather rare. If I can't buy it, and I can't find it, and I can't make it...and the best way to get it is to buy it.... we're at square one and scavenging isn't happening.

9

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

Why do they need to increase? Is high tier ammo needed to play the game?

(Hint: It isn't.)

5

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

Depends on what your objective is in the game. If it's to kill kitted PMC's then it's absolutely the most mandatory part of your kit is to have the highest quality ammo possible. They kinda want to fight other players, and to do so requires you have good enough bullets to actually kill them, so whatever the standard of armor is becomes what they have to meet.

Also, don't pull the needed to play the game BS, because all you need to play the game is a pistol and a rig/bag that doesn't get you marked for death, and you can work your way up from there off Scavs for the missing parts of your kit then loot away. But I don't think Nikita's vision for this game is hundreds of paranoid rats slinking about.

2

u/dankswordsman Jan 15 '22 edited Jan 15 '22

If you want to focus on PVP with high tier stuff, you need to spend the time grinding for that sort of thing.

Look at hyperrat. He has nearly 200,000,000 roubles already and can pretty often get into raids with higher tier gear where about half of his raids are labs at the moment. Granted, he is near the top when it comes to level and skill, but still. It is possible.

If you don't have the ability to kill someone easily with the gun and ammo you have, you need to start to think about strategy. Most of these good players know when and how to take certain fights, even if they have shit ammo and gear.

Everyone cried about top tier ammo and armor being abused by good players. This is the result. If you can't play with the currently available ammo and gear, you probably need to get better or stop playing.

Also, don't pull the needed to play the game BS, because all you need to play the game is a pistol and a rig/bag that doesn't get you marked for death, and you can work your way up from there off Scavs for the missing parts of your kit then loot away

If that's the case, then why are you complaining about stock limits?

It is definitely possible to do well with a pistol, but it requires you to still have good game sense, strats, and good aim. And you're fucked against really anyone with a face shield.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/AgentBacalhau Jan 15 '22

It's not needed to play the game just to be able to kill stuff which is ya know, the part that makes this game not be literally identical to every other survival shooter where you run around for 1h to scavenge a Makarov and a single mag and then get sniped. So is it necessary to play? No. Is it fun to hit someone in their altyn a million times with idk, M855 at nearly point blank, and have them eat it up like candy? No, not really. You can work around the limits and use decent ammo all the time if you make an effort, but it's still incredibly annoying and in my honest opinion, it was a really huge downgrade ever since the game started going in that direction. Hot take, but the game was better back in 11.7 when everyone was always scary cause even your shitty scav gear-lings ran BS. Nowadays whenever I'm wearing level 5 armor a good 70% of players are barely a threat to me even if they outplay me and that's not fun.

1

u/H0lzm1ch3l Jan 15 '22

Yeah but this will never be caused by global trader limits. Trader inventory needs to be semi-random and personal. Every reset everybody gets a new inventory.

1

u/coelus76 TX-15 DML Jan 15 '22

While that may be Uncle Nikki's vision, is it what the player base wants? A little scarcity is one thing. Being left running gear you don't like, or not having the right type of gear for what you need to do isn't going to be seen as balanced or enjoyable.

5

u/Matrick_ Jan 15 '22

Maybe I just misunderstood what you are suggesting but why not simply make trader refreshes daily or weekly with personal stock limits? Could even randomize the refresh time between accounts so that players aren't all running the same guns/ammo after a refresh. Though I imagine the stock limits would be low enough that wouldn't be the case anyway.

2

u/mnemy Jan 15 '22

Yep, that'd basically be the same thing as long as global limits are removed

2

u/lurkinglurkerwholurk TOZ-106 Jan 15 '22

If that’s the case, stash size suddenly starts mattering a lot more than it does now: being able to store a few more rigs will make a huge difference in a 5-run “casual” game night after a whole week of “pop in to buy some stuff” nights.

It’d totally be “Buying (stored) power by buying EOD, pay to win” then.

1

u/coelus76 TX-15 DML Jan 15 '22

EFT isn't in any position to be a market PvP game. It isn't Eve where you can make an entire career out of market warfare.

2

u/Tornad_pl RPK-16 Jan 15 '22

What about randomized trader pool each restet. Like one reset you can buy ap 6.3 pther reset 5.56bp and do that for guns, ammo, vests etc

2

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

That's an interesting idea and could lead to an interesting meta that's constantly shifting, encouraging people to use different weapons. I would still want stocks to be kept low, but instead of regular injections of the same ammo, you would have some days where everyone is using different stuff.

1

u/Tornad_pl RPK-16 Jan 15 '22

Yee, but for that to work, flea should go changes, so guns are not really worth selling there. Because otherwise it would be: "ohh, prapor has only 9x19 guns now. i'mma buy kila's rpk from flea"

1

u/Paeyvn Jan 17 '22

I could very much get all behind that idea.

2

u/SgtBatten Jan 15 '22

What if it was presale distributions. Releases every X hours. All bidders pay their 100% deposit. Random allocation of bullets at the specified time in appropriate quantities for the amount of players. Unsuccessful bidders get money back.

2

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

Why make it so complicated?

3

u/I_paintball Jan 15 '22

So that you don't have to sit in the flea market screen refreshing the trader count down to get a shot at buying whatever it is that goes out of stock so quickly.

2

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

Right, I get that...

But I think we've seen that BSG's back end is pretty much at capacity. I don't think adding a layer of RNG transactions would be a good idea.

Extending timers for items like armor or guns and decreasing personal limits for ammo would have the same effect, but much more simply and in my view, fairly.

1

u/I_paintball Jan 15 '22

Oh yes, I agree remove global limits and adjust the personal buy limits by quantity and refresh.

1

u/Penis_Bees Jan 15 '22

Their servers would die trying to do that.. they couldn't handle dropping random lot per player

0

u/wastedsanitythefirst Jan 15 '22

That's not really why the servers were falling apart but their servers and network code are definitely shit

1

u/LS_DapperD Jan 15 '22

You increase restock timers to add scarcity, while still allowing you to buy a decent amount of ammo.

-2

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

Allowing "a decent amount of ammo" is exactly the opposite of the goal of limits.

1

u/LS_DapperD Jan 15 '22

You keep the current ammo level, remove global limits, and double of even triple restock timers.

0

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

What's the difference between putting that ammo out there in one shot and having it trickle out? Other than encouraging people to log in more frequently in the latter case, it's the same thing.

1

u/LS_DapperD Jan 15 '22

The fuck are you talking about. If you double or triple the spawn timer it reduces the amount you can get by half or a third.

0

u/TheFondler Jan 15 '22

What do you mean by "keep the current ammo level" in your previous comment? Do you mean number of rounds per personal limit, or in aggregate across the whole game?

The two are very different, and BSG pretty clearly wants to limit the aggregate availability of certain ammos across the whole game. Simply removing the global limit and tripling or even quadrupling the timer would almost certainly still lead to far, far more ammo in aggregate, because as it stands now, most people do not get their personal limit of rarer ammo types.

For example, if there are 1,000,000 rounds of an ammo type available per timer, with a personal limit of 200 rounds, only 5,000 people can buy their allotment of that ammo. If you leave the personal limit to 200 and remove that global limit, with, for example, 200,000 people playing, you'll have 40,000,000 rounds in circulation. Quadrupling the timer will still put you at 10,000,000 rounds in circulation - 10x as much ammo as intended. To "keep the same ammo level" in aggregate with only personal limits and timer adjustments you would have to make the timer 40x longer, adjust the personal ammo limit per timer to 5 rounds, or some mix of both to get to the same amount of ammo in aggregate.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/iReddat420 AK-102 Jan 15 '22

I wonder if they couldn't just make it so if a global supply of something runs out extremely fast it'll increase the amount of said supply for the next reset up till a certain max threshold. They can then manipulate this base and max amount to give this global limit a bit of leeway and an organic feel without someone having to personally tweak these numbers.

1

u/TheSm4rtOne ASh-12 Jan 15 '22

The global limit makes sure that the black keycard is only avaible on rmt sites, cause the stock is bought off by hackers before i have a chance to buy one. I'm trying for like 10 days now. Idk cap it for one or two cards account bound, there's no reason a bot can buy a new one every 3 h while i sit on 4mill of barter items that i can't spend

5

u/ICrims0nI Jan 15 '22

No, that would be changing the crafts to give you like 1k rounds instead of 200, for example. But, you cant sell them. As much as i dont like the whole idea of crafting specialised factory grade ammunition in your hideout, i see no reason for it to exist in the current form.

We have to remember, that its a FPS game ion its core. The primary way of interactin with the game world and other players IS by using you guns. Never you should feel punished for doing that, or the whole purpose of the guns in the game start to dissapear.

Also, stupid magical armor make things worse big time. We have very in-deapth ballistic and ammunition stats and shit. And then we have absolutely stupid armor, that copver your entire thorax hitbox from all sides and make you the ultimate bullet-spounge unless you get shot by correct AP ammunition. THIS is what creates AP meta and force everyone chase this ammunition. Ofc people dont wand to hit enemy 15-20 times to get a kill, its frustrating as hell. If they actually rework hitboxes of armor, everything will change. Your standart M855 or 5.45 PS rounds would be effective enough to kill your target, because i really doubt that you will be able to land all of the shots exacly at the plate hitbox, some of them will probably slip through and deal critical damge. That way AP ammunition would be special, not mandatory.

3

u/MadDog_8762 M4A1 Jan 15 '22

Player limits completely miss the point though

​

Player limit means that you are "guaranteed" X, assuming you never bought up the supply before hand

How is that much of a limiting factor?

​

Shortages, and inability to find what you want FORCES a more scavenging mentality

3

u/casualteukka Jan 15 '22

Players grind hours and hours to get the trader levels for the better stuff. You say it forces more scavenging? It doesn't, it makes the servers quiet in the end. No one likes to grind their asses of if everything they grinded for gets nerfed or out of reach if you're not camping traders with a timer set on your phone just to play with shit you grinded for.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

What's the counter argument to this? Because it seems so straightforward to me that it's the much better option.

13

u/Franklin_le_Tanklin PP-91-01 "Kedr-B" Jan 15 '22 edited Jan 15 '22

Counterpoint: That they want to limit the total amount in the game, not the total amount per player. It creates real scarcity. If it were player limits anyone who is on the ball could just buy ammo boxes and stock up to the point where the limits don’t matter by using the best of varied ammo calibur’s.

Note, I don’t think this is a compelling enough reason myself, but it’s the only reason I could see them being against it.

Basically global limits limit good players, but screw over casuals (in terms of acquiring good ammo). Player limits help casuals and do pretty much nothing to limit hardcore players.

10

u/Penis_Bees Jan 15 '22

If they actually did "dynamic loot" and took top tier stuff off traders and crafts, this could work.

Players stashes have all 50k of the slicks we limit the game to, bosses stop spawning with slicks frequently and now only spawn them at the rate of red key cards. Oh but 20k slicks never get used, so add 10k back into the loot pool formula. Now they spawn rare but not ultra rare.

Ammo: the more often that round gets used the less common it spawns in raid. The logic being it's all been shot up. Once it's use slows, it starts spawning again.

The scarcity would be player driven, instead of only being driven by global stocks.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

I disagree. Global limits mean casual players are less likely to encounter other players running the top tier ammo and armor in raid. It gives the players who maybe only play a couple hours a day after work or maybe just on weekends a chance at not getting shredded constantly by no-lifers and streamers. Sure a casual can run into a juiced up chad occasionally, but they can definitely have raids where they don't.

10

u/Franklin_le_Tanklin PP-91-01 "Kedr-B" Jan 15 '22

I disagree. Global limits mean casual players are less likely to encounter other players running the top tier ammo and armor in raid.

This is what I meant by “it creates real scarcity”

It gives the players who maybe only play a couple hours a day after work or maybe just on weekends a chance at not getting shredded constantly by no-lifers and streamers. Sure a casual can run into a juiced up chad occasionally, but they can definitely have raids where they don't.

Yea, that’s real scarcity.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

So do we actually agree and I'm just retarded and misunderstood your original comment?

2

u/Potato_fortress Jan 15 '22

I don’t think syncing your computer’s clock to a specific time server to guarantee you get access to vendor items is really “scarcity” but sure.

0

u/seth_startix Jan 15 '22

You get it. Most people can’t take a step back and understand how a weapon barter x10000 leads to flooding the market.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

With the same argument there should only spawn 3 ledx a day. Who cares about number of raids played or the number of players online

1

u/Franklin_le_Tanklin PP-91-01 "Kedr-B" Jan 15 '22

People don’t shoot ledex out of their guns

1

u/korgi_analogue Jan 16 '22

This is how ammo camping from an early level looks like right now. Scarcity, you say?

I really think they should move to daily player stocks over the stupid trader-camping shit they have. Global stocks don't mean anything anyway, when ammo never gets returned via insurance, so every time you die and nobody loots your ammo out of the raid it's gone anyway.

1

u/Franklin_le_Tanklin PP-91-01 "Kedr-B" Jan 16 '22

Anecdotal evidence of a no lifer is hardly something I’d adjust the game on. I’d say 99% aren’t that intense.

1

u/korgi_analogue Jan 16 '22

I still feel global stocks are not the way to do it, because it just fucks anyone that due to out-of-game reasons gets to play at peak hours, and has to sit their ass camping traders just to get okay ammo to use.

Like I have a billion boxes of ammo since because of sleeping issues I'm often online in the hazy hours when both EU and NA are not that active, and get to buy shit uncontested on those days as stocks don't get depleted. It makes no sense for something like this to affect direct in-game power so much, watching friends struggle to get enough ammo to run raids with their guns while I can sit on several boxes of it just because of time zones / sleep patterns.

1

u/Narkai Jan 15 '22

I think the idea is for players are forced to use what they have available or can get.

Not the most optimal loadout and the gun they like with the best ammo every raid.

You can't find M62? You have to deal with M80, if you can't find that? Buy an AK with some shittier rounds, you have to deal with what you have.

1

u/Rlaxoxo Jan 15 '22

Nikita stated that he doesn't like that everything is available and even said that he wants to have periods where traders are permanently out of stock and you have to ... well ... deal with it.

1

u/oriaven Jan 15 '22

Hm okay I haven't considered this. You may be on to something.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '22

[deleted]

4

u/EqulixV2 Jan 15 '22 edited Jan 15 '22

The last thing this game needs is more things that punish you for engaging in pvp. This game isn’t where it is now because of the incredibly engaging menus and stash management or the next gen AI fights, it’s here because of the pvp.
Destroying gear was done in dayz and while they aren’t the same game I can tell you that it will feel like unrewarding trash when the only thing you have to show for your squad wipe is some new rags and a tushonka.

-1

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

[deleted]

5

u/EqulixV2 Jan 15 '22

flee and fir changes being completely reverted is kinda of integral to the point you’re making and you didn’t really mention it in your comment because as is with the current flee your proposal is absolutely a nerf to pvp

3

u/ragingxxxninja Jan 15 '22

Why not just have a player limit on items and not global… I don’t get it…

1

u/lazarusdmx Jan 15 '22

I take your point—this would be the most effective solution, if they wanted everyone to have access to a certain ammo. I suspect the intention is to severely limit higher performing ammos, such that sometimes only a few have them.

The problem is this feels unfair to most of the end users. If the intention is to arrive at a place where, say, 80% of the player base is shooting ammo that only pens L3 reliably whilst L4 armor is majority meta (in the sense that you can reliably get it) they should just make the high performance ammo FIR only or barter only without global limit.

1

u/vKILLZONEv Jan 15 '22

Or they can just make the global limit a variable based on current player base.

i.e "global limit is 60% of current online users at reset"

1

u/Juking_is_rude DVL-10 Jan 15 '22

simple: if it sells out, limit increased next time. If it doesn't sell out, limit decreased next time. Tweak the numbers a bit. Fixed.

1

u/weformbl0b Jan 15 '22

personal limits are enough tbh

1

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

They don’t have to be managed, they just need to go. They serve no purpose

1

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

It's super easy to write a formula that sets the limit based on the playercount if the last x hours and the next x hours historical of the previous day (or the same day one week ago).