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Other => FOnline:2238 Forum => Archives => General Game Discussion => Topic started by: Eternauta on January 28, 2013, 08:40:14 am
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I think it's best to post this as a general idea and open the discussion instead of directly throwing the same idea into the Suggestions board.
I bet we will all agree that the FOnline player needs to spend much of their playing time getting resources and crafting to be able to have a reliable "income" of gear (weapons, armor, ammo, drugs) that allows them to participate in many of the game's activities. This is especially true for participation in "professional" PvP, which demands a lot of time getting the necessary gear.
These activities are varied and different from each other, they include crafting, farming, stealing from NPCs...
The problem is that these activities tend to feel like chores and they usually have even more activities attached to them (an obvious example is levelling an alt for stealing, an alt for farming, and alt for crafting...) - These chores make the experience of playing the game less enjoyable and also reduce the general "quality" of the game, especially when we think about 2238 as the multiplayer instance of Fallout.
Anyway so far I'm not saying anything new. What I actually want to discuss here is: would it be possible to have a better crafting system?
By a "better" system I am talking about a system that felt more comfortable to the player and that made it less necessary to do all the things players do to get gear: level tons of alts, spend a lot of time just clicking clicking clicking to craft stuff, or clicking clicking clicking to mine ore and minerals, stealing from NPCs, doing quests just to have enough rep with Gunrunners to be able to craft there (and then wait until they can repeat the quest)...
A "better" system would allow players to get gear through an activity that felt more integrated to the rest of the game, for example by needing less alts and doing it with team work.
I have personally been thinking about a crafting system based on factories. Basically the idea is: we have factories in our faction bases, and they require NPCs (slaves) to work. Slaves are taken to and placed in bases, and more slaves equals a higher production rate. Faction leaders/important members can use the base terminal to planify production and then wait for the items to be made. In a way it'd be similar to the production of rot gut, beer, cigarettes and nuka-cola.
But we'd still need to spend time getting iron, minerals, fibers, etc. So a new way of getting resources could be made, to go with the factory system.
I've always thought it was weird that you could walk into a town's mine and grab some of their resources without any cost. Instead of that, what about doing a mini quest to get those resources? for example, you talk to a NPC in the mine, and he hires you to protect the mine workers from the attack of wolves, raiders, supermutants, whatever. There could be different levels of difficulty with different rewards, so these quests could be done by characters according to their level.
This way we would be able to get resources and craft gear using our "normal" PvE characters.
Some notes:
1. Although you can always make an ad hoc team and share the reward, and personal bases already exist, this system would probably make things complicated for loners, especially for players who have just started playing. So maybe this could coexist with current crafting and gathering system, only to allow players to craft basic gear easily during their first steps in the game.
2. There are a lot of details that would require a rework. For example blueprints should work in a totally different way (making them work for the entire base factory and not for just one individual character?)
I think the idea is clear enough. Maybe I could have expressed it in a better way but I think it's easy to understand the general concept
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Hot damn, someone thinking!!!! :'(
Now, I like where this seed is going, like you said it needs some work, my first thought is, instead of Just slaves maybe NPC's you can hire (like the homesteader in previous wipes) Just cause well I'm not a slaver lol same concept though workers for the facility. It's a tough call with having 2 different ways to get the materials because we all know players will choose the easier of the 2, so even if you limit stuff in the current mines to be helpful for new players but not great for mass production, people will still farm the crap out of it. Maybe if you keep the current mines and rework purchasable mines where you have to purchase the area (for cheaper), defend it (from npc's) and then after a set time a small group mines for you, and you can mine there also til it 'runs dry'. That way it's not a buy it throw slaves there and forget it thing, but it has things you have to be involved with.
IMHO I really didn't mind the previous seasons crafting system, I didn't use a bunch of alts, and I loved the thrill of getting a 22min CD full of HQ stuff while running my ass off. My little 4 man gang back then could make what we needed of the good stuff and had plenty to sell, I didn't feel like it took up too much of my time, but that is again subjective. Some people can mine all day, others do it for 2 mins and can't take another click.
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The new way of getting Ore/Min should be somewhat the old way when you could just enter an random location and start mining rockformations.
The contra argument of too large resourcelfow as it was brought up back then makes no sense since i can easily do the same thing with Farmer- and Scienealt on NPC encounters.
so:
-make normal min-ore again avialable on most random encounter maps.
-make all mines spawn HQ stuff.
-reduce/remove cooldown on unguarded mines.
-add HQ min-ore to Bunker.
-remove the resource cap from private mines.
>zomg people will stay in der bases forevar !!11!!
> The factioncrafter will stay in base. So what? Eter is right. Production (NPC-trading, farming and crafting) shouldn't be 80% of the Game.
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Problem is when your goal is interaction with other players (generaly involving pvp), you dont want to waste time working for your gear doing pve farming and quests for npcs.
You should be working for your resources by risking player interaction, there should not be such a thing as a guarded mine or personal mine/bunker mine.
Things should be craftable like last session, having to massacre NCR for combat armor mk2 is what I would agree as a chore.
But the main real thing would be to prevent mass accumulation of gear, once everyone is loaded we all cry for wipe to come, gathering resources and making your gear should not be something you do the first 2 months of the server, it should be a constant struggle. A gathering timer would of course not work cause of fast relog, but, the mining animation and mining process being longer would prevent power mining.
Bring back the era of pvp mining!
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Problem is when your goal is interaction with other players (generaly involving pvp), you dont want to waste time working for your gear doing pve farming and quests for npcs.
You should be working for your resources by risking player interaction, there should not be such a thing as a guarded mine or personal mine/bunker mine.
Things should be craftable like last session, having to massacre NCR for combat armor mk2 is what I would agree as a chore.
But the main real thing would be to prevent mass accumulation of gear, once everyone is loaded we all cry for wipe to come, gathering resources and making your gear should not be something you do the first 2 months of the server, it should be a constant struggle. A gathering timer would of course not work cause of fast relog, but, the mining animation and mining process being longer would prevent power mining.
Bring back the era of pvp mining!
With Fast relog gone that shouldn't be an issue. The truth is no matter how you get it there will ALWAYS be a mass accumulation of gear, it's what people do, and it is sort of needed since in pvp you can lose tons of gear and if you do it on a regular basis even if you're great at it you're gonna need more gear.
I like the idea of mines being available in random encounters. The guarded mines are there though and should stay because it's about the only way for starting characters to get anywhere, it's the players themselves who farm non-stop make soo much gear that they have too much and cry wipe later. It's a choice, and one a lot of us to have to do because you can and often do lose a ton of gear.
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Problem is when your goal is interaction with other players (generaly involving pvp), you dont want to waste time working for your gear doing pve farming and quests for npcs.
You should be working for your resources by risking player interaction, there should not be such a thing as a guarded mine or personal mine/bunker mine.
Don't mix the genreal idea of encountering a player with some specific mechanics concerning only the gathering of min-ore.
Especially private mines need fixing. It's just laughable what you get out of it for that amount of invested caps.
Yet another dead-end development....
Things should be craftable like last session, having to massacre NCR for combat armor mk2 is what I would agree as a chore.
totally.
But the main real thing would be to prevent mass accumulation of gear, once everyone is loaded we all cry for wipe to come, gathering resources and making your gear should not be something you do the first 2 months of the server, it should be a constant struggle.
No. First of, the relog CD even if it comes back should not, not interfere with non-combat gameplay.
Gathering material for even a small number of active PvP apes IS a constant struggle until this very day.
Bring back the era of pvp mining!
Lol, naab.
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trading, crafting, repairing general obtaining stuff and economy is totaly broken. probably some of people will say - "its fine like it is" so there is no point to speak about it ill there is not interest form developers side to rework this shit.
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Everything in this game can be made better and we players offer suggestions to make them better but devs rarely listen or do not have the needed skills to implement the suggestions. We also allready had a good crafting system last era but devs thought it was too easy I guess so... yea guess we are sticking with limited resources and having to make another alt just to get blueprints.
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trading, crafting, repairing general obtaining stuff and economy is totaly broken. probably some of people will say - "its fine like it is" so there is no point to speak about it ill there is not interest form developers side to rework this shit.
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Yeah please don't bring that here. The Dev's have listened before to decent suggestions, and this one is literally in it's infancy we're just now hashing out the details. I think E's on to something.
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First, devs need to decide whether they want a survival server, where items are scarce or action-packed one with plenty of stuff everywhere.
Speaking of action-packed server, there has to be more ways of obtaining quality gear. Crafting seems ok to me, it works more or less the same elsewhere and people who like to craft and rather do PvE shouldnt have any problems. Problem arises with PvP, where you tend to use massive amounts of supplies. Thats why, people involved in PvP should be "rewarded" with stuff.
I imagine it as following: Each gang as a paramilitary organization should be a subordinate of one of the major factions (Enclave, BoS, NCR, -some random fictional name-) out there. Gang would receive faction points for doing PvP activities like participating in TC, killing an enemy, damaging an enemy etc. that could be spent on decent (price should rise exponentially so T1 would be very cheap, T2 cheap and T3 pretty expensive) gear. So all in all, mediocre successful gang shouldnt never have to farm again unless they want top gear.
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Factories? Why not. But remember that to get slaves you still need slaver alt. To bring materials in the factory you need a high cw hauler alt.
In my opinion gathering and crafting is fine when player doing it doesn't feel tempted to use alts.
First, devs need to decide whether they want a survival server, where items are scarce or action-packed one with plenty of stuff everywhere.
Survival server can never work because players are limited by their personal time. Some players simply have 10h/day to play the game and others only 2. Best way for stuff distribution is that richest don't equal power in excessive amounts. This means that even poor guy can get the best gun in the world quite easily, but rich guy can get ten of those guns. However you can only wield one gun, so it's not a big deal.
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Each gang as a paramilitary organization should be a subordinate of one of the major factions (Enclave, BoS, NCR, -some random fictional name-) out there
I also like the concept of playable NPC factions. Open test of FOV server proves thats idea works. The problem is that it requires a HUGE amount of work for developers. Dont belive 2238 crew can handle it atm, so we can only dream on :(
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Survival server can never work because players are limited by their personal time. Some players simply have 10h/day to play the game and others only 2. Best way for stuff distribution is that richest don't equal power in excessive amounts. This means that even poor guy can get the best gun in the world quite easily, but rich guy can get ten of those guns. However you can only wield one gun, so it's not a big deal.
Im not saying, that server should be about survival, but currently, server is something in-between which is not very good in many aspects.
Even if a lone guy had the best stuff, what would he need it for if hes alone ? Numbers matter and in FOnline, they matter a lot. Top gear should be result of cooperation between players, because only this group can make good use of it.
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Would better gathering/crafting systems be possible?
yes. make resourced infinite in mines and problem solved. quick & easy fix.
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Im not saying, that server should be about survival, but currently, server is something in-between which is not very good in many aspects.
Even if a lone guy had the best stuff, what would he need it for if hes alone ? Numbers matter and in FOnline, they matter a lot. Top gear should be result of cooperation between players, because only this group can make good use of it.
You have a point but there are some loners, and low population gangs who do PvE things in game, and I know I wouldn't mind having CA MkII rather than a leather armor if I were going into the Glow or something. That's just an example, in a perfect world we'd have dozens of places for pve people to dive into. And I totally agree with Avv that the less it feels like I NEED to make an alt to do something the better. Kinda takes the fun out of it, if I can just switch 13 times and be done.
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my first thought is, instead of Just slaves maybe NPC's you can hire (like the homesteader in previous wipes) Just cause well I'm not a slaver lol same concept though workers for the facility.
Slaves could also be bought from NPCs or fellow players. But I guess payed workers could exist as well, maybe you pay these some caps and they stay in your base for a limited amount of time, but this way using slaves would be a way too much better option...
Factories? Why not. But remember that to get slaves you still need slaver alt. To bring materials in the factory you need a high cw hauler alt.
In my opinion gathering and crafting is fine when player doing it doesn't feel tempted to use alts.
Yes, we agree here. As said in the original post, I just wanted to communicate the general concept. I should have also mentioned that imho "making a better crafting system" includes your idea of giving our characters more CW. Alternatively NPCs could send the materials to our bases (maybe with a miniquest here to protect the caravan?).
Maybe some resources could not even exist as item but as numbers in a database. But again, that would only work good for factions with bases and be complicated for lonely newbs.
I imagine it as following: Each gang as a paramilitary organization should be a subordinate of one of the major factions (Enclave, BoS, NCR, -some random fictional name-) out there. Gang would receive faction points for doing PvP activities like participating in TC, killing an enemy, damaging an enemy etc. that could be spent on decent (price should rise exponentially so T1 would be very cheap, T2 cheap and T3 pretty expensive) gear. So all in all, mediocre successful gang shouldnt never have to farm again unless they want top gear.
I love this idea and have thought about something like that for a while now.
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I imagine it as following: Each gang as a paramilitary organization should be a subordinate of one of the major factions (Enclave, BoS, NCR, -some random fictional name-) out there.
It's not that simple to get it done and working, not at the scale you think.
There are certain problems with that, if these gangs under major factions are friendly and supposed to fight together under one flag, there are design flaws to what no solution exists. Imagine the possibilities of imbalance for a start, just think about it, that could be somehow regulated, but at the expense of free choice(only real way is to moderate population of certain faction, nothing is more effective than disallowing new members for a time period). If at some point imbalance occurs you might give better rewards for the faction with the disadvantage, but that is it. You can't disallow new members for the faction or something, its shitty concept to do that.
Now imagine enemy players using alts on your faction, looting stuff from faction members without permission upon fights and you can't kill him because if you do that there would be some kind of penalties of killing sub-faction members, right? So players would really take advantage of it and there is nothing you can do about it. There would be enemy friendly alts joining you to a fight to scout you and you can't get rid of him, if you do that many times logically you will be kicked out of major faction, Enclave, Brotherhood of Steel etc. etc. If that wouldn't be the case, these penalties for killing sub-ordinate faction members, then the whole system would lose the whole point of why such a system was made in the first place - to unite players, but it will do quite the opposite due to design flaws.
The biggest mistake what could happen is force the players upon such a system only, unique gangs outside of these factions is a must.
I'm just saying, don't hope for something like that.
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To get back to the original post i like the idea of a factory type setup. Ive often thought there should be a way to load materials into a work bench and craft from the collected pool of materials. I agree the npcs who work in the base should not be limited to slaves, just a cheaper alternative or less effective choice.
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Even if a lone guy had the best stuff, what would he need it for if hes alone ? Numbers matter and in FOnline, they matter a lot. Top gear should be result of cooperation between players, because only this group can make good use of it.
I can't agree. It's because cooperating players already have an advantage against other players with their numbers and cooperation. What do they need top gear on top of that? Equal chances to good gear give hope to everyone.
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Hope is not something you can measure. There is no chance between player groups and loners, about what equal chance are you talking?
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Hope is not something you can measure. There is no chance between player groups and loners, about what equal chance are you talking?
There is perhaps no chance in PvP, but there should be chance for enjoyment of the game. A loner has every right to decent stuff as a gang, Maybe not mountains of it but still some to make their game time worth it. As far as the crafting goes I think the factory thing isn't a bad idea, I dunno how to balance it with the current system though as to not cut out the smaller groups of players.
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Bases would act as factories, and personal bases already exist. So loners and smaller gangs could have factories too.
Also, maybe slaves could be free (requiring slaver, ropes and time to obtain) but less efficient than payed workers.
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@T888: I didnt say gangs under same faction should be allies, I used these faction to give certain plausibility, who might be giving out rewards. Factions dont care which gang did the job as long as the job is done, they act as a mere contractors. After all, its just a concept saying PvPers should be rewarded for their performance (variaton of TC box).
@avv: Weve been through this many times. You need to adjust difficulty for obtaining all kinds of gear. When the difficulty reaches a certain point, you group and divide the overall difficulty by number of players. Having peak difficulty set at just one player is very bad scaling if you ask me.
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How does that work? Two factions fight each other under Enclave contract and Enclave gives them stuff? ;D
If not, your talking about some group quests for these factions, so that is really nothing special
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How does that work? Two factions fight each other under Enclave contract and Enclave gives them stuff? ;D
Enclave wants control over a town that is currently under control of another faction. Two separated gangs try to do the job and end up fighting each other in the process. The Enclave just wants the town so they only reward the gang that gives them the town.
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Yeah, okay that is more reasonable.
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Pointless banter over dead body.
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Hmm... I think a factory is a bit too overpowered. I mean it takes it from not having enough gear, to potentially having way too much. I mean when gear is irrelevant, you end up seeing what happens every time there is a wipe (factions attacking guarded towns for lulz etc.). But it does have some promise. How about instead of a factory, you simple have a resource bin near the workbench. Something with nigh on unlimited space for mats. That way things are still governed by crafting times, but there is no running back and forth between chests and workbenches.
Only in faction bases of course (I don't have one, but as a bit of a loner, I don't need that high production capabilities). The reasoning is that crafting should still be limited, giving factions the ability to produce mass amounts of gear (even on a timer) would just be a pretty boring little minigame, done once a week or so, and then forgotten.
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Pointless banter over dead body.
That doesn't mean an idea will rot with it.
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The idea of factories kind of goes along with once you've "put in the time" playing the game to level alts, do quests, have a resource stockpile, etc.-- routine activities like crafting should become easier.
In fact, it's somewhat bizarre that you can own enough caps to buy three cities yet you're still forced to fetch and do busy work. I'd be down for some expansion on the current farm laborer idea--why not hire a whole crew of migrant workers for caps?
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Actually Giftless, that's a great idea! We need another cap sink, too many people accumulating millions with nothing to do with them...
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Actually Giftless, that's a great idea! We need another cap sink, too many people accumulating millions with nothing to do with them...
Well it should be more than just caps, but yes the idea is sound, the fact of putting together a base, a gang, finding the resources, the plans, you should be rewarded with not having to constantly gather over and over, and then build over and over. Nothing will change big gangs having TONS of items, it's just a fact of the loot system. How you obtain those items and the rewards for your labors is what we're talking about. Truth is in a game with full loot drop you kinda need the tons of items, cause if not the game becomes a one shot wonder. You do pvp for a bit, you eventually die lose your stuff, either you have more, or you're done.
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I personally think they need to sort out thievery in regards to pack brahmin. Gathering isn't that big an issue, though I'd like there to be either a few more mines, or a few NPCs that sell and buy ore at a decent rate (there may actually be NPCs that do, still new), and it'd be nice for at least two safe HQ mines, because I know, the risk is a big part of Fallout online, but I hate travelling through harsh zones, scraping by with my gear, only to be shot by a camper who'll end up looting 3 12. gauge shells and maybe a bullet-ridden, hole-filled leather jacket or something.
Oh yeah, thievery.
It should be as if they tried to steal from you, and it should use your perception or whatever the qualifier is for thieving fails/successes. I am getting so pissed off with FINALLY wrangling a brahmin to act as a pack animal, then mining a large amount of ores and minerals, only to have some lazy level 2 thief steal it all from him, without being punished for it.
It should state "[username] tried to steal from you" when a brahmin is being stolen from, too. It'd at least make them think twice about stealing from your carrying animal, rather than YOU do all the hard, tedious work of gathering, then they take it all, no retribution, no repercussions, nothing.
And when I say a reasonable price for NPC traders, I mean less than 1000 caps for ONE mineral or something like that. As a new player, I'd just like to say some of the prices for certain things are total shite. I have no problems with money or gear as I make most of it myself at level 11 or 12 I think, and sell the excess. But time taken to gather the materials + the difference in materials + the hazard in gathering said materials should be taken into account.
I don't mean your individual crafting time. You could intentionally take 20 hours to make a combat shotgun then ask for 10,000 caps for it because of your slow arse, I mean time taken, say, for a tommy gun (not the best gun, just an example here guys)
Depending on where you are, and if like me you camp out near-ish to NCR, I have to trek all the way down to the bottom of the map, gather a tiny amount of junk (my brahmin got shot going down there. It thought it could take on mutants and the like), drag it all the way back, mine some minerals and ore, providing others haven't taken the lot, then find some wood, then craft it all together, provided no one picks my pockets before I get to the work bench, now solved as I have a safe house rather than a tent, but yeah...
Kinda just rambled on a little there rather than said anything useful.
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Valid stuff
It used to be if they failed on your Brahmin you would get a notice, though I think that was with guards around. Nothing is gonna stop the thieves sadly every time they change something with them the shit hits the fan. There is another thread about just gathering in the suggestions right now but some people are forcing it to not go very far.
I personally understand your frustration with having to go to the unsafe places for the HQ stuff. I do know that several dev's have stated that they refuse to add HQ to any place safe, and I can understand the reasoning behind it. If there was a rework of the crafting system to make it so some of the better stuff that isn't really high tier gear could be crafted again with Low quality stuff it wouldn't be such a bad thing. The fact you can make an m60 without HQ stuff but you can't make the bullets is insane. Or you can make rockets but can't make a rocket launcher without the BP. Right now the crafting system is so much of you can only make the most basic of stuff, it's just about useless. Having Ore and Mineral spawn in the merchant table wouldn't be a bad idea, as you said for a fair price. The whole system needs a rework.
Combined with crafting, perhaps adding in that if you do dismantle an item you have a chance of learning how to make it *getting the blueprint* Cause as you can see in my sig, BP hunting unless you make an Ares farm alt is pretty involved.
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And when I say a reasonable price for NPC traders, I mean less than 1000 caps for ONE mineral or something like that. As a new player, I'd just like to say some of the prices for certain things are total shite. I have no problems with money or gear as I make most of it myself at level 11 or 12 I think, and sell the excess. But time taken to gather the materials + the difference in materials + the hazard in gathering said materials should be taken into account.
I don't mean your individual crafting time. You could intentionally take 20 hours to make a combat shotgun then ask for 10,000 caps for it because of your slow arse, I mean time taken, say, for a tommy gun (not the best gun, just an example here guys)
Depending on where you are, and if like me you camp out near-ish to NCR, I have to trek all the way down to the bottom of the map, gather a tiny amount of junk (my brahmin got shot going down there. It thought it could take on mutants and the like), drag it all the way back, mine some minerals and ore, providing others haven't taken the lot, then find some wood, then craft it all together, provided no one picks my pockets before I get to the work bench, now solved as I have a safe house rather than a tent, but yeah...
I've been arguing for awhile to have a cash purchase option in-game to reflect the kind of player-to-player trades going on outside of the game. The trouble with having the barter value on raw materials too low is that players could just rape the vendor with the usual farmed weapons. A better system would be to allow a direct purchase through the dialog window, caps only. Something like 10 Metal Parts for 300 caps and 10 alloys for 600 caps.
You gotta understand too, that for some of the more established players, the hazards involved with crafting decrease substantially. Taking your Tommy Gun example (which is a bad craft choice anyhow vs. the grease gun due to it's junk cost) I'd still have little trouble with those due to having a car and base network set up. Just one of my trapper camps can yield around 1500 wood, boom that requirement is done. For Metal Parts I just have to bolt a cow to the bumper of my car and enter the right mine immediately adjacent to a base--it takes time but there's almost no risk. Junk is probably the most annoying to gather, but again, I know the areas where players aren't at and I can reach them quickly.
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Yes. something like that guy who sells you detonator parts for 500 caps or whatever it is through dialogue.
I know the risk is the whole point of higher tier weapons and armor. Hell, if they had HQ minerals at the safe zone, I'd have a .223 pistol, plenty of ammo, a sniper rifle, combat armor etc. and I'm only level 13
It's the idea that, say, I have plenty of caps to spend on rarer materials, because I can just make any low tier armor and guns I need, and have more than enough ammo for them, so stims, materials and blueprints are all I want to spend my money on right now.
Maybe implement something like level restricted mines. the lower level restrictions for non safe mines means less rarer deposits.
I've tried running into a non safe mine when most other players are sleeping, and there's always a guy camping there (why you'd camp for anything other than XP is beyond me, no one in their right mind would go to a place like that with their best stuff. I'm still pretty much a newbie and even I know that) and I can't really get a gang together due to low xp, not a lot of money, and being considered a "Noob" by people so they won't allow me to come along on a mining trip or whatever.
Yes, trading with players, blah blah blah. That has the obvious draw-back of extortion once they know you really want that specific item.
I only use the tommy gun for it's extra range, really. also gathering junk doesn't really bother me. It's time consuming but with my high perception, cautious nature and lack of anything to lose when I go there to gather, if I get killed, hell, I get killed.
Could be worse. like the actual noob who shot me in NCR, getting his dumb arse killed in the process, just because he was too shit/cheap/idiotic to spend 104 caps on a robe so he killed me for mine.
I've got 10 of the damned things, and I only wear them because I hate the vault suit but that's going off topic.
Basically, they ought to implement a few NPC dialogue options that allow to you but certain rarer ores and minerals instead of having to go out to get shot every other minute. I know that's all part of the fun, but you need to understand, when you're a high level guy, with many 24 alts, with good gear in player gangs, it isn't all that bad.
When you're on your own because everyone you meet is either an idiot, a thief or a murderer who really, REALLY wants that shit covered shovel you're carrying for some odd reason, it just pisses you off.
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(why you'd camp for anything other than XP is beyond me, no one in their right mind would go to a place like that with their best stuff. I'm still pretty much a newbie and even I know that)
You were killed. Somebody achieved their goal.
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I've been arguing for awhile to have a cash purchase option in-game to reflect the kind of player-to-player trades going on outside of the game. The trouble with having the barter value on raw materials too low is that players could just rape the vendor with the usual farmed weapons. A better system would be to allow a direct purchase through the dialog window, caps only. Something like 10 Metal Parts for 300 caps and 10 alloys for 600 caps.
You gotta understand too, that for some of the more established players, the hazards involved with crafting decrease substantially. Taking your Tommy Gun example (which is a bad craft choice anyhow vs. the grease gun due to it's junk cost) I'd still have little trouble with those due to having a car and base network set up. Just one of my trapper camps can yield around 1500 wood, boom that requirement is done. For Metal Parts I just have to bolt a cow to the bumper of my car and enter the right mine immediately adjacent to a base--it takes time but there's almost no risk. Junk is probably the most annoying to gather, but again, I know the areas where players aren't at and I can reach them quickly.
So you craft grease guns? :(
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You were killed. Somebody achieved their goal.
I've never been killed at an HQ mine. Hell, I've never even BEEN to an HQ mine, as I said, no one will take me with them and I've checked one out before carrying absolutely bugger all to get an idea of what it's like. someone shot and missed. That's what I am saying. Also, even if I did go there and did get killed, XP is rewarded in regards to how powerful the creature is, so wouldn't, say, a level 24 killing me give him less xp than him killing a higher level encounter monster or NPC? Or are XP values different for players and it's more or less the same dependent on level?
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Or are XP values different for players and it's more or less the same dependent on level?
Nope,0XP for players killed.
I believe it was implemented to prevent leveling exploits(IE killing your alts over and over until you are level 24)
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So you craft grease guns? :(
Not for a long time; it's more fun to farm khans once you have a decent combat character.
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A bit of thinking about getting resources (ignoring current gathering/mining system):
Quest - Protect farmers to get fruit/fibers/tobacco. Guard mines to get ore/minerals. Protect a group of scavengers to get junk. The resources are sent to the player's tent (which reminds me of the suggestion to start with a tent) or to a base if a team of characters from the same faction come to the mine/fields/scavenging area.
The character(s) get the ad hoc location on their map and have to travel there to defeat enemies and protect NPCs. This way loners' rewards are not mixed with factions'. This brings up a question: what if a group of characters from different factions and/or loners come in a group and get the quest? (for example during TLL activities) - the reward goes to the leader's tent? it get divided into each guy's tent?
The reward should not depend on party size (which would be abusable) but on difficulty levels: there a lot of creatures in the wasteland that could be put in different levels of difficulty: ants, manti, dogs, (giant/pig/mole)rats, geckos, centaurs, floaters, aliens, deathclaws, also tribals, raiders and supermutants. The enemies could depend on location and game lore (wanamingos in Redding, geckos in Klamath, deathclaws in the Boneyard...)
Think about the quest Dogs of L.A. (http://fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Dogs_of_L.A.) as a references. Just imagine you also gotta protect salvagers NPCs while doing it, and maybe even you get a little bonus for every friendly NPC that survives?
Buying and caravan protection - Talk to a NPC in the location (for example the guy who sells private mines) and buy resources via dialogue (fixed amounts with fixed prices so no Barter alt is used). The resources are yours now but you gotta protect them until they reach your tent or base. There could be different levels of difficulty here as well, so a caravan transporting a smaller amount of resources would not be an attractive prey for raiders, so you just gotta kill some rats you find on your way, while a bigger caravan might be attacked by Khans or remnants of the Master's army. This mode would probably be mostly for factions with a lot of caps.
Protecting mines - This mode does contemplate the current mining system: players go to an unprotected mine and get payed for protecting it. The player should stay in the area for a given time to get minimum (low) reward and get bonus for every unit of recource that exit the map (can't depend on the number of characters that go out alive as that would be abusable). If the character dies before the "protecting mine" cooldown is over, they get no reward. The reward could be in resources or caps (player's choice) and quite attractive so that pr0s got a reason to protect these locations for noobs/lowlevels.
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A bit of thinking about getting resources (ignoring current gathering/mining system):
Quest - Protect farmers to get fruit/fibers/tobacco. Guard mines to get ore/minerals. Protect a group of scavengers to get junk. The resources are sent to the player's tent (which reminds me of the suggestion to start with a tent) or to a base if a team of characters from the same faction come to the mine/fields/scavenging area.
This is good, even if it were a random encounter it would be nice to get a stack of 100 fruit, or 40 metal parts from battling various NPCs. Something to break up the monotony of multiple mouse clicks. I'm thinking you could hit one of these encounters on the world map per hour, and the enemies would scale slightly depending what level your character was at.