Custom Mode: PLEASE Separate "Baseline Resource Availabililty" and "Tool Spawn" settings!

[Hadrian]

So I've been dragging my feet on posting about this after talking about it endlessly elsewhere... oops. The following suggested change to the Custom Settings framework would increase my enjoyment of the already excellent Custom Mode by an order of magnitude. Here's the long and short of it:

The very first Custom Setting, "Baseline Resource Availability," currently controls two to three settings in one. I, and I have it on good authority that many others feel similarly, would love to see those settings demarcated so we could manipulate them independently of one another.

Why? Because I love the scarcity and challenge of Interloper, not only of items in general, but the absence of the best items ... but I do not at all care, and I never have, for the complete absence of the tools and feeling forced to go in specific directions (read: Forges) rather than exploring openly in any direction in the spirit of traditional, non-Interloper gameplay.

Here are my thoughts. Baseline currently controls ...

- The prevalence of non-container, in-world (indoor and outdoor) loot spawns
- The availability of top-tier manufactured clothing (Expedition Parka, Mukluks, Gauntlets, etc.)
- At its lowest setting, the availability of manufactured (non-improvised) tools such as the knife, hatchet, firestriker, etc.

Here's why this is a major opportunity for the next sandbox update, in terms of a practical implementation that would address the core issue and an ideal implementation that asks far more, but fully realizes the potential of the change to the current mechanics.

Primary / Most Practical Implementation: Create a separate setting, like the ones that already exist for Rifles & Revolvers, that allow Custom Players to play with manufactured tools enabled while playing with otherwise "Low" Interloper-level clothing and world loot spawns via the Baseline setting.

Ideal / Most Ambitious Implementation: Split Baseline into three separate settings, one for baseline world / non-container loot, one for whether the top-of-the-line clothing items spawn, and then multiple toggles to control the availability (and perhaps rarity) of each tool so that the knife, hatchet, firestriker, etc could all be turned on/off just like the Rifle and Revolver. As an added thought, it would be great to see these individual settings have degrees of rarity (Rifle and Revolver, too), so we could set all these spawn frequencies to low, medium, high, etc.

So as the primary implementation text implies, this is about allowing Custom Settings to recreate an authentic, traditional Long Dark survival experience at the highest level of difficulty and resource scarcity without the current contrivances, unique to Interloper and the lowest Baseline custom settings, that force players to play the game differently than they'd like to.

Please.

Please, Hinterland.

Cherry on top.

-H

Edited January 16, 2020 by Hadrian

[UpUpAway95]

Wouldn't it be simpler to just add an overriding setting for Tools (Yes/No) and Top-Tier Clothing (Yes/No), similar to Rifles and Revolver settings now... and leave the Baseline Resources setting alone?

Also, I thought the "Loose Item Availability" setting already controls the amount of loose loot one finds in the world separate from the Baseline Resources setting.  Am I mistaken?

[Hadrian]

8 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Also, I thought the "Loose Item Availability" setting already controls the amount of loose loot one finds in the world separate from the Baseline Resources setting.  Am I mistaken?

You're right; I'd forgotten that setting existed because I've had it glued to "Low" for literally ever. Ha.

That said, what I would say based on experience playing with that setting on "Low" and Baseline Resource Availabillity on "Medium" (to keep Tools spawning) is that Baseline Resource Availability does still seem to control the lion's share of the variance in non-container world loot, despite the Loose Item setting.

You have to think of the Baseline as the literal "start point" and the subsequent Loose Item Availability as a modifier. Lots of the Custom Settings work as modifiers. So, I think the original point still stands, although I think your caveat adds some clarity. Maybe the best solution is to put more weight in the Loose Item modifier than presently exists.

Edit: And just to defer to a potential correction from Raphael, I might be wrong about the modifier function. All I know is that I have "Loose Item" on Low and changing Baseline to "Medium" sure seems to make lots more clothes spawn than spawn on Interloper.

-H

Edited January 16, 2020 by Hadrian

[Atheenon]

I can’t read this much and have my brain turn to mush after my eyes glaze over lol, BUT if this post has to do with what we talked about on stream I’m totally on board with them making these changes to allow greater control of loot selection on custom settings! Cheers!!

[Jendo]

*nods in agreement*

[Mavgrim]

Seperating the availability of high level items and the chance to find any items at all - yes, all for it.

[J.P.]

I have around 800 hours (on steam) and probably 40-50 on xbox. 99% of those are on stalker difficulty. The only reason I've not jumped to interloper is the being put "on rails" from the beginning to go make tools. It just feels less "sandboxy" and that turns me off from it. So I agree that this would be a welcome addition. 

 

[ogreranger]

 

3 hours ago, Hadrian said:

You have to think of the Baseline as the literal "start point" and the subsequent Loose Item Availability as a modifier. Lots of the Custom Settings work as modifiers. So, I think the original point still stands, although I think your caveat adds some clarity. Maybe the best solution is to put more weight in the Loose Item modifier than presently exists.

To my knowledge as long as baseline resource is set to "low" top tier clothing and manufactured weapons will not spawn regardless of what loose item availability is set to. When I increase the loose item setting I will find much more of whatever loot is allowed per the baseline resource setting. I sometimes create runs with baseline "low" and loose item set to "medium" just so I can find...Something, even though I know that the loose loot (and the amount of) that I find is still regulated by the baseline resource setting.

3 hours ago, Hadrian said:

All I know is that I have "Loose Item" on Low and changing Baseline to "Medium" sure seems to make lots more clothes spawn than spawn on Interloper.

Yes. I can have every setting interloper except baseline resources set to "medium" and it seems to me any and all loot available in game can be found at some point somewhere on GBI. Except perhaps the frelling mukluks, but that may be my bad RnG.

To me a toggle(s) that adds the ability to change any and/or all settings/percentages would be just... Super!   +1 indeed.

[Guest jeffpeng]

4 hours ago, Atheenon said:

I can’t read this much

You'll be shocked to lern that newspapers (low level tinder) and books (good for firestarting) contain a lot more text in real life. Beware.

@HadrianAs far as I understood it from old code (and I see no reason to believe this has changed): Baseline controls what and how much of it can spawn, and Loose Item Availability then controls how much of it does spawn by "random" chance.

There are three groups of items affected by this: Food, Clothing and Tools. This also affects some other things like the caches in HRV or the containers on TWM. (I also think that ammunition and cleaning kits are in there somewhere, but that's probably a bug). I guess those are the three options you are looking for: Allow High Quality Food, Allow High Quality Clothing, and Extended Tool Availability.

And yeah, if they could include this, this would be great.

[harshstorm]

i agree with this and it gave me an idea which i'd like to share just because it sounds cool but i have no idea(or expectation) about how feasible it is to implement.

 

Imagine a mode(or a challenge) where top tier manufactured clothing and weapons exist in the sandbox but just one and exactly one of each.

It would be a good incentive to explore the whole world to get all the rare item.

Each of these item will be precious and players would be inclined to always take care of them. imagine a wolf attacked you and you survived but it tore your only expedition parka. Not as intense as death but that would be an intense experience of loss as one would have in a apocalyptic situation. material and tools which are required to fix and repair these precious items would still be there.

 

Just a crude suggestion which can be built upon.

[stratvox]

Try setting baseline to high or very high, empty container chance to the max, and container item density to the lowest setting, and loose item availability to high. You can get top tier stuff but with container density to low and empty container to high you end up really not finding a lot of stuff. In my experiments with custom games setting the container stuff up like that ends up with ~>90% of containers having nothing in them whatsoever... and with baseline set to very high there are a lot of containers that you can use for storage in the buildings etc but they're almost all empty.

[Thefriendlysithlord]

@Hadrian

 

I really like all of these ideas, but I would rather see them implemented as a sandbox level between Stalker and Interloper 

Have the weather at or near Interloper settings, with craftable clothing being the best available. Allow all weapons and tools to be found in the world, albeit at low spawn amounts. Lastly have animals and plants somewhere between Stalker and Interloper settings 

This way, people that feel Stalker is too easy, but don't like the "on rails" feel of Interloper, can have something that is fun, and challenging that also allows them to earn badges 

 

[Pierrot]

Apparently, the main subject brung on the table by our "narrative" friend Hadrian (Big Up) is important; it would be great for each to choose a few (bit more) setting to be able to still have this lifefull challenge witch let us bearely survive and in the same time allows us to thrive a bit sometimes in a our each one own Specialty!? I don't Know but Sandbox mode is Like random trees of events (created by this Nice mechanics), witch combinations are in an always unique diferent order, Like Life, specially surviving.

This categories are great to sum Up the mains surviving spirits: Survive... From nothing but Mother Nature or From Scraps.

It would be great to have "Random generated maps" cause knowing spawns and shelter helps so much about planning so act also on our Custom Settings... Anyway, Cheer up Mates

 

[Hadrian]

9 hours ago, Thefriendlysithlord said:

I really like all of these ideas, but I would rather see them implemented as a sandbox level between Stalker and Interloper 

Have the weather at or near Interloper settings, with craftable clothing being the best available. Allow all weapons and tools to be found in the world, albeit at low spawn amounts. Lastly have animals and plants somewhere between Stalker and Interloper settings 

This way, people that feel Stalker is too easy, but don't like the "on rails" feel of Interloper, can have something that is fun, and challenging that also allows them to earn badges 

That would be great, but to go that far without giving the Custom Players the changes mentioned would be not unlike robbing Peter to pay Paul. 🙂

13 hours ago, stratvox said:

Try setting baseline to high or very high, empty container chance to the max, and container item density to the lowest setting, and loose item availability to high. You can get top tier stuff but with container density to low and empty container to high you end up really not finding a lot of stuff. In my experiments with custom games setting the container stuff up like that ends up with ~>90% of containers having nothing in them whatsoever... and with baseline set to very high there are a lot of containers that you can use for storage in the buildings etc but they're almost all empty.

I play on settings that mirror Interloper, and I definitively do not want the best items to spawn. To each their own, of course. I'm responding because I just want to be as clear as possible that this isn't something that can be resolved simply by tweaking the existing settings. It's the need for more degrees of freedom in the custom setting, with the clear justification that the Baseline setting currently controls two or three separate mechanics. I'd like to see those mechanics each have their own tweakable settings

 

16 hours ago, harshstorm said:

Imagine a mode(or a challenge) where top tier manufactured clothing and weapons exist in the sandbox but just one and exactly one of each.

It would be a good incentive to explore the whole world to get all the rare item.

Each of these item will be precious and players would be inclined to always take care of them. imagine a wolf attacked you and you survived but it tore your only expedition parka. Not as intense as death but that would be an intense experience of loss as one would have in a apocalyptic situation. material and tools which are required to fix and repair these precious items would still be there.

Oh, hell yeah. If the Devs were able to go as far (which I'm not asking them to do, mind you) as to implement scalable rarity for the clothing / tool spawns, the lowest settings could make it to where only one of each item spawns. That would address your suggestion and mine in one change / set of changes. It would mean a "High Quality Gear" setting with High to Low options, most likely. Then, of course, you'd have an "off" for folks like me who mostly want to avoid it, especially when playing for YouTube.

-H

[stratvox]

17 hours ago, Hadrian said:

I play on settings that mirror Interloper, and I definitively do not want the best items to spawn. To each their own, of course. I'm responding because I just want to be as clear as possible that this isn't something that can be resolved simply by tweaking the existing settings. It's the need for more degrees of freedom in the custom setting, with the clear justification that the Baseline setting currently controls two or three separate mechanics. I'd like to see those mechanics each have their own tweakable settings

Aye, but in the meantime, this gets most of the way towards what most of the people in this thread seem to be asking for wrt item spawns in the game as it exists right now... not much stuff but having the possibility of getting the good stuff. I'm not suggesting it's for everyone, but at least it's worth it for folks to try it out.

[Martin Prchal]

Yes, I am totally on board with this idea. This would allow a lot more customization with the loot.