Stalker world (looting) trip feedback

[Scyzara]

Allright, I've finally finished my stocktaking attempt to count all items available alltogether on all maps in an average Stalker game.

I did my very best to visit all places on all maps and searched everything very thoroughly, yet I still only discovered 153/160 places. (My guess is either some locations didn't trigger correctly and/or not all places that count for the journal statistics are reachable yet.) Doesn't matter much, anyway - I'm just mentioning it because it's a hint that I probably haven't found all items available despite all my efforts.^^

My two bunkers were probably the least valuable ones (firewood in PV, food in ML) so that's another aspect where other games might yield significantly more loot. Apart from plain loot luck, ofc.

So please take all the following numbers with a grain of salt - they vary from game to game, naturally. (I've marked numbers I found extraordinary troublesome in red, numbers I particularly liked in green.)

For reasons of clarity, I only counted items I somehow found particularly valuable. That's why food items, scrap metal, clothes, rosehips & Co. are missing. I've also summed up some items according to their function (e.g. reishi mushrooms and antbiotic pills). One cure (= 2 pills or one reishi tea) is the amount of antibiotics needed to cure a food poisoning, 10 cures are sufficient to cure a parasite infection.

As the game automatically counts the overall number of can openers found, I didn't count these manually on all maps, but only took over the total number from my journal (see stat screenshot below).

 

I don't want to comment much on the overall amount of loot in general - I've explained numerous times in the past that I personally would love to have a drastic loot reduction (only 10-20% of the current amount) for myself, but I somehow understand the reasons why things are as they are. That's actually why most of the table is white - had I evaluated the loot amount with only my own wishes in mind, the table would have become much more red.

 

All that being said, here's the feedback I would like to share about my findings:

1. I very much liked the fact that not all items were to be found on all maps. Having to bring items from one map to another adds to the gameplay in my opinion. I'd love to see more of that infact.

2. I believe emergency stims should be removed from the random loot table of first aid kits and rather be physically placed at randomized spawn locations in the world. I love stims being scarce and valuable and - while this was fortunately the case for me on most maps - I pulled three of them out of first aid kits in ML by pure chance. I would like it much better if there was less randomness about their overall amount.

3. In my opinion, the heavy hammer should be removed from the TWM cargo container loot table. Unless the secure hammer spawn in DP is going to be removed in the future, no player on Earth is ever going to haul a 2kg hammer (not even to mention several of them) from the TWM summit to the Riken without any reason. So I'm either asking to make the TWM hammers the only ones available or to remove them from the cargo container loot table alltogether.

4. Given the extremely limited current utility of toolboxes (as well as their slow deterioration and repairability with nothing but scrap metal), I would love the overall amount of toolboxes to be drastically reduced.

5. The likelihood to pull rifle cleaning kits out of TWM cargo containers might need some tweaking. I would suggest to decrease the probability to get cleaning kits and in reverse increase the probability to find (single!) rifle rounds or (single!) flare shells. During my current game, the number of cleaning kits I found outweights the possible duration loss by firing all of my amunition (120 rounds = 240% durability loss) by far. Three (or maybe four) cleaning kits are sufficient for all cleaning that ever needs to be done within a single game, yet five times more cleaning kits are available. That just doesn't make any sense.

Last, but not least... two screenshots I'd like to share for a bit of data verification. Emergency stim number 8 from my table is missing in the lower screenshot because I had an unfortunate encounter with a bear in DP and decided better to be safe than sorry.

That's it - I for one am done counting items for a loooong time now. Hope some of you find these numbers interesting. When talking about them, please always keep in mind that they're just numbers from one single game - in other games, the numbers would likely have been either higher or lower.

[cekivi]

That is a lot of loot...

Personally, I'd prefer there to be a reduction in the number of tools and an increase in the durability of whetstones and cleaning kits. Making tools more precious gives back a lot of joy for finding them. I also agree that there can be too many emergency stims diluting their importance and impact. +1 to non-first aid kit drop locations.

To go back to something I mentioned on the "how hard should stalker be" forums - 11 can openers versus the one you'd likely find in the earlier alphas is a good indication of how loot, in an effort to make all maps viable starting locations, has gotten a little out of hand.

http://hinterlandforums.com/index.php?/topic/11002-how-hard-would-you-want-stalker-mode-to-be-if-you-had-a-choice/

As an added bonus, I now know there's a non Timberwolf Mountain Flare Gun drop location. I'll have to keep my eye out for it

[Patrick Carlson]

Thanks for sharing this, @Scyzara. A loot inventory is an interesting way to understand the game world (and its challenges). 

[ChillPlayer]

Wow that's awesome work @Scyzara  and I think this table should be the base for all discussions about the amount of loot in Stalker (not Pilgrim as one might guess from the numbers ). It would bring back alot of tension from the old times if the amount of some key items would be drastically reduced, like Rifle, Knife, Hatchet, Toolbox and Sewingkit, 3-5 per play would be more than sufficent, especially if so many sharping stones and cleankits are around - which should be drastically reduced too. Things like the magnifying lenses should be reduced to 1 per play as well as the amount of matches because finding the lense makes it possible to theoretically live forever, unless the devs will build decay into the lenses too of course as with the firestriker.

I think the amount of rifle rounds you found is a bit low but it's been a while since I played the last time for several hundred days. I think I've found more like 200 bullets on my last 400 days run, although it doesn't really matter, 120 or 200 bullets are way way too many if you can gather 66 birch saplings/craft 66 arrows.

Personally I don't have an issue with the amount of stims, in fact I even hoped it would be more if deep exploration is to be encouraged but they should be placed in difficult to get locations to make it rewarding going there (unless you need it to get back of course ;)). And as a coffee junky I never can have enough coffee tins, not only for speed runs but also for sandbox play, I just like to have a last resort. This paragraph of course only applies if the former two would be implemented, in it's current state it's too much.

What I don't have an issue with due to recent addition of parasits is the amount of food found, it's a welcomed change from a Venison diet

I like the first point of your conclusion very much. I was quite disappointed to realize some time ago that although we have so many nice and beautiful maps, when it comes to loot they are all the same. It would encourage players to explore much more if sewingkits would be mainly only found in ML an PV, Rifle only in CH or DP, Toolboxes and Hammers only in DP and so on. Because right now there really is no reason to leave DP ever other than for some diversion and maybe to find the lense and it's kind of sad that after you cleared the first map (for me usually ML) you practically stop looting other maps very thoroughly, unless you gather stuff for statistics of course

Let's see what the future will bring and if all this will eventually make sense or the amount of loot will be reduced. But something has to change I think, at least for Stalker.

[selfless]

3 hours ago, cekivi said:

... loot, in an effort to make all maps viable starting locations, has gotten a little out of hand.

+1

If the sandbox is ever going to become an actual game instead of just a world to test mechanics things need to be spread out unequally.

[Scyzara]

10 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

[..], although it doesn't really matter, 120 or 200 bullets are way way too many if you can gather 66 birch saplings/craft 66 arrows.

One birch sapling is enough to craft 3 arrow shafts. So it's actually even 184 arrows that I could craft with all of my birch saplings (58 saplings + 10 arrows/shafts). And all of these Arrows could be used to bring down at least 4-5 animals each... well, I certainly agree with you that it's quite irrelevant how many bullets I've found. 

[Ruruwawa]

I recently did the same thing in Pilgrim -- specifically to count bedrolls (which are a limiting factor in my cave dwelling games).  I didn't keep meticulous by zone records but totals are very similar to yours.  Not identical (some higher, some lower) but well within normal variability.   I thought there would be more loot on Pilgrim, but maybe that was just a bad assumption on my part.

[Ruruwawa]

18 hours ago, Scyzara said:

So I'm either asking to make the TWM hammers the only ones available or to remove them from the cargo container loot table alltogether.

Please no   I always haul one down from the summit to break the ice at the fishing hut.  Also, for very long run games it's another repairable tool for breaking limbs into firewood, or breaking down furniture.  BTW my Loot-the-world Pilgrim game had only 3 hammers:  1 ea in DP, ML and TWM.

18 hours ago, Scyzara said:

Given the extremely limited current utility of toolboxes (as well as their slow deterioration and repairability with nothing but scrap metal),

Simple tools / quality tools -- provided they work like whetstones for hacksaws and hammers, that seems ok.   Can the simple tools themselves be repaired after repairing other tools (I've never tried).  If so, that seems a bit too good.

[cowboymrh]

Oh My Gosh Scyzara ....... I wondered where you been for last several days!!!  Now I know!! LOL    Great list of items, and helpful to see!!

Only thing you left out that i wish you would have counted was matches!!

Could you go back and do that please!!  LOL

[Scyzara]

4 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

Simple tools / quality tools -- provided they work like whetstones for hacksaws and hammers, that seems ok.   Can the simple tools themselves be repaired after repairing other tools (I've never tried).  If so, that seems a bit too good.

Yes, toolboxes (both simple and quality tools) can be repaired themselves. You don't even need two toolboxes. One toolbox + one piece of scrap metal is enough.

In other words: One toolbox in the whole game would be sufficient to repair everything you want because you can always repair the toolbox back to 100% condition with nothing but a piece of scrap metal. That's why I said the amount of toolboxes doesn't make any sense.^^

1 hour ago, cowboymrh said:

Only thing you left out that i wish you would have counted was matches!!

Oh, I just decided not to count these after I had already found about 600 of them in TWM alone. Guess there are probably 1500-2000 matches overall.

[Ruruwawa]

45 minutes ago, Scyzara said:

That's why I said the amount of toolboxes doesn't make any sense.^^

This could be fixed one of three ways: fewer toolboxes or no repair option... or both.  Since there's no repair option for whetstones I don't think there should be one for toolboxes either.  There still seem to be more toolboxes in the world than whetstones, so # probably needs to be adjusted too.

[Hotzn]

Kudos, Scyzara, for putting all this together. Very interesting. So it seems knives and hatchets are not guaranteed spawns on all maps. And yeah, far too many stims. It would actually be cool if there was only one hammer in the game, or maybe two, but not in DP. So you would have to find it first before being able to use the forge.

[Patrick Carlson]

14 minutes ago, Hotzn said:

Kudos, Scyzara, for putting all this together. Very interesting. So it seems knives and hatchets are not guaranteed spawns on all maps. And yeah, far too many stims. It would actually be cool if there was only one hammer in the game, or maybe two, but not in DP. So you would have to find it first before being able to use the forge.

You should still find at least one hatchet/knife per region. Likely they were out of sight in this particular Sandbox game. 

[Scyzara]

26 minutes ago, Patrick Carlson said:

You should still find at least one hatchet/knife per region. Likely they were out of sight in this particular Sandbox game.

Are you sure about that? I believe DP is an exception from the rule - at least I've already had various playthroughs where I didn't find a premade knife and hatchet there. Always thought this was on purpose because you can forge improvised knives and hatchets inside the Riken anyway.

[Drifter Man]

That's some serious work, Scyzara  A loot-it-all challenge. I don't play Stalker so I won't interfere much. Thanks for this overview, I can now estimate what to expect in the maps I haven't yet explored.

[Patrick Carlson]

1 hour ago, Scyzara said:

Are you sure about that? I believe DP is an exception from the rule - at least I've already had various playthroughs where I didn't find a premade knife and hatchet there. Always thought this was on purpose because you can forge improvised knives and hatchets inside the Riken anyway.

Let me clarify--You're right that Desolation Point is a bit special because of the Forge, in that unlike the other regions there's only a >>chance<< of getting a knife or a hatchet. It's not that they don't spawn at all because of the Forge. You might come across a knife, hatchet, or both depending on the game. I hope that helps!  

[Scyzara]

9 hours ago, Patrick Carlson said:

Let me clarify--You're right that Desolation Point is a bit special because of the Forge, in that unlike the other regions there's only a >>chance<< of getting a knife or a hatchet. It's not that they don't spawn at all because of the Forge. You might come across a knife, hatchet, or both depending on the game. I hope that helps!  

Okay, thanks for the clarification Patrick! I'll keep my eyes open for them while looting DP in future games. 

[MueckE]

Nice work Scyzara

Although i am way beyond the request of reducing loot, youself brought it up - just randomize the spawns of important items. Just imagine how great it would be, if the hammer does not spawn in DP but maybe at the summit or somewhere in ML .... Only by changing this, the game suddenly would be way more challenging and interesting - especially with the new fatique mechanics. Do the same for the rifle, single riflerounds, hatchet, knive, matches/firestriker and so on and it would be instantly harder. I mean, there are things that spawn/act like that - saplings, bunker, bears .. just a little but of tweaking is needed.

 

[Wasteland Watcher]

Great info in this post -- thanks Scyzara!

My opinion probably should NOT count for anything Stalker related as I always play Voyageur.

That being said, regarding drops,  it doesn't make sense to not be able to find a hammer in a Forge. 

And in a cargo plane's cargo boxes, it completely makes sense to find a bunch of seemingly "useless" items, such as a cargo box full of, for example, rifle cleaning kits. 

It's like that one guy in Zombiand looking for twinkies and comes across the abandoned Hostess cargo truck full of "Snowballs," but no Twinkies. 

Anyhow, just for the sake of realism over "game balance" I'm totally for finding a bunch of random stuff in the cargo boxes.  Maybe the plane was a delivery for Walmart's hunting section, right?

 

[Salty Crackers]

The Riken was a whaling boat. You're just using the boiler as a forge. It makes sense for there not to be a heavy hammer, because what else would you use it for?

Also, what's so bad about rifle cleaning kits? Fill a container with books or something. To make this work, make some of the containers have variable cargos, with 1 of each type on the map.

[Scyzara]

7 hours ago, Salty Crackers said:

Also, what's so bad about rifle cleaning kits?

Nothing's bad about rifle cleaning kits per se. But I personally find it nonsense to have five times more cleaning kits in the game than you can ever use. Shooting the rifle only deteriorates it by 2% on average, cleaning it once returns 5% condition. Even if you find 150 bullets and start your cleaning process with a horribly damaged rifle at 10% condition, you're only going to need four cleaning kits alltogether in the whole game, NOT 20 of them. 

For me, it is more important whether things make sense gameplay-wise, I would never balance item numbers just for the sake of realism if that makes the game less interesting or fun to play. I know it's "realistic" to find tons of useless stuff in the cargo containers of a plane, but following this logic some containers might as well be filled with tons of ballpens or plush toys or anything else that is not really valuable for our character. Yet all containers currently contain somehow useful items instead. That's why I assumed that the great surplus of cleaning kits may possibly be unintended and decided to mention it in my feedback.

[cekivi]

Personally I'd have a laugh to find a container full of writing utensils. We need something to write our journals with

In serious though, I wouldn't mind "useless" items in the game provided the crafting system is upgraded to where we can start making things that we can use. For this, we'll probably have to wait for mods.

[TLD Survivalist]

On Monday, May 17, 2016 at 1:43 PM, cekivi said:

That is a lot of loot...

As an added bonus, I now know there's a non Timberwolf Mountain Flare Gun drop location. I'll have to keep my eye out for it

Yes that is alot of loot I agree +1 to pretty much everything @Scyzara suggested... Being relatively new to TLD Im glad to see someone who also thought there were a few TOO MANY rifle cleaning kits.... And @cekivi YEAH!! I literally JUST found the non TWM distress pistol spawn the other day... Safety cushions feel nice!