How to balance low-pop high-pop servers

[Dagwood 680]

So storage units (tents and such) being persistent after server restarts has been confirmed. This has been discussed a lot and so it will undoubtedly be implemented. What I would like to discuss is loot spawns being persistent after server restarts and from day to day.

To set the stage for this discussion, I will first need to mention two features that I am (fairly) sure will be implemented.

The first is dynamic loot respawning. The way I understand this is that if a certain item or item type is repeatedly looted from a building or a cluster of buildings, (town?) that item will begin to respawn and be found in different locations around the map with greater frequency than it will in the original location.

The second feature is the hive economy. This hive-wide feature is supposed to control the prevalence of certain items across the hive. Only 5 DMRs, 3 MKMODs, 2 AS50s and 1 FAL thermal on the entire hive (for example).

What I would like to see implemented is a combination of these two features. Let me explain how I envision it working.

As we all know, the majority of player activity is stratified around the southern and eastern fringes of the map (players minimize costs and down time by lingering around spawn areas with sufficient loot intensity). With my envisioned mechanic, these places would begin to spawn less and less loot as more people raided these easily accessible coastal spots (like how these towns are picked clean soon after server restarts on the experimental hive). BUT, this change in loot location and prevalence would be felt across the entire hive.

You guys don't like how people can get geared up in electro or Cherno or balota on low pop servers while you scrounge across the interior of the map for your goodies on populated servers? Well as more and more people ransack these loot-bloated spots, less loot is available to them on every low pop server they join (as well as the populated ones).

I think combining these two planned features in the way I briefly explained would end server hopping for loot as we know it and give players an economically efficient incentive to explore every inch of the map instead of only being concerned with who got to what barracks first.

This might already be how the devs are planning to do loot spawning. But if it is not, I think this method should be considered, as it takes the power to metagame looting away from the individual, and makes it a community-wide problem/privilege.

I'm jet lagged and tired, but this came to me and I think it could realistically be implemented. Thoughts? Criticisms?

Edited March 23, 2014 by Dagwood

[crazywolf5150 17]

Not a bad idea... but I'm not too concerned with server hoppers as I've been going into low population servers and going into areas where most server hoppers don't go to grab all my guns and gear. What I find is a bigger concern is that I haven't spawned anywhere along the south coast in a long time (probably a couple updates ago) and I seem to only spawn by Solnichny or Berezino. I'm fine with them switching up the specific item spawns, but there should still be plenty of loot to be found in coastal cities when that's where all the bambis spawn and they at least need food, rags and melee weapons to survive.

Edited March 23, 2014 by crazywolf5150

[Dagwood 680]

Good for you for actually playing the game and finding creative places to build your survival arsenal. But this idea wasn't aimed at players like you. I was thinking more about the players that don't know how to navigate off of the coast and won't learn to do so until it's necessary to survive.

If fresh spawns can always get those essentials at coastal towns, they will never leave the coast. As is the case currently.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Dagwood

[Dagwood 680]

Is this in the wrong section?

[Dagwood 680]

Or does everyone just not like my idea?

[Daemonkid 493]

Should be in the suggestion forum. If a mod see's this it'll be moved. I've reported you, not for anything bad, just so I can notify a mod to move this on down to suggestions.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Daemonkid

[Dagwood 680]

Much appreciated. I've been posting from a phone and I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of the mobile version.

[leefriendfield 438]

Much appreciated. I've been posting from a phone and I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of the mobile version.

Swap over the the desktop version that's what I did and it works perfectly and even better than the mobile version

(Sent from my phone)

[Dagwood 680]

I wish my OP was being discussed and not my posting method...

[Ziad 34]

I like the idea in general.  Especially with the persistence of tent storage; if I decide that the game is made out of balance by, say, too many Long Range Scopes, I can hop through the servers on the hive, harvesting all of the better-condition LRS spawns, and place them all in my tent.  That way it would cut down on KoS snipers.

 

Or if I didn't like the idea of people getting away with popping zombies, I could collect all (or as many as I could get) of the Amphibia mags, and put them into storage, thereby increasing their rarity all across the hive. 

 

And so on.  In short, I can see a very big problem with it (NB: I have nothing against Mosin shooters or the Amphibia) as it would be possible for one player with a particular obsession to adversely affect the game play of other people, folks who don't have anything at all to do with him.

[mgc 92]

""The first is dynamic loot respawning. The way I understand this is that if a certain item or item type is repeatedly looted from a building or a cluster of buildings, (town?) that item will begin to respawn and be found in different locations around the map with greater frequency than it will in the original location.""

 

Are the new locations fixed or random?

[Dagwood 680]

If there were even just 1,000 LR scopes on the hive, do you think you could even collect 100 of them? That's about how many you would have to hoard in order to noticeably affect their prevalence.

Hive economy is confirmed anyway.

And for your question about where items respawn: to prevent people from server hopping obscure locations with good loot, items would need to respawn in a random location for each individual server.

So when elektro fire stations are being ravaged for loot across the hive, that gear would randomly respawned throughout quiet towns further north that haven't been frequented as much.

Does that make any sense?

[mgc 92]

If there were even just 1,000 LR scopes on the hive, do you think you could even collect 100 of them? That's about how many you would have to hoard in order to noticeably affect their prevalence.

Hive economy is confirmed anyway.

And for your question about where items respawn: to prevent people from server hopping obscure locations with good loot, items would need to respawn in a random location for each individual server.

So when elektro fire stations are being ravaged for loot across the hive, that gear would randomly respawned throughout quiet towns further north that haven't been frequented as much.

Does that make any sense?

 

 

Yup.

How about we skip the first phase and go straight to full random loot respawn?

Edited March 25, 2014 by mgc

[thedogfoodyayho 295]

I personally think the old loot spawning system is fine, but spawns should decrease on lower-pop servers.

 

I see yours cuassing alot of problems. Mainly it seems like it would be extremely hard to implement and would be glitchy, and as already said, people would hoard everything into random cornors of the map on low-pops. Even if they did get 100/1000 LRSs, thats qiete i significantly chunk of them - and hey, what if some other guy wsnts to do it to? What about the guy who hoards all that 5.56 and .45? He's got nearly 50,000 rounds. 

While that may be hard, i determined clan, over a long course of time could do it, or atleast taje a good chunk out of the hands of other survivors, just to be trolls.