Barrels / Lockers everywhere with $1 in it, etc.

[Balls Out 3]

The original Fallout games handled loot just fine IMO. It worked pretty well in STALKER too, where you had stashes that people had hidden away. In a post apocalyptic world, there's going to be a major run on resources, and everything that is useable is immediately going to be scavenged and hoarded on a first come, first serve basis. He who has the most resources lives the longest. Even things that are seemingly "junk" have value to someone with the ingenuity to turn it into something useful. If you've ever seen a trained survivalist in action, you know what I mean. The same skills that apply in a forest setting apply to the urban jungle as well. Many things can be improvised as building materials, fire starters, weapons, etc. Finding several bits of resources strewn about just isn't realistic. But this is a game, after all. Sure, make the gameplay fun, but also make it halfway believable when applicable.

As far as gameplay goes, I just don't think it's fun to go through a ton of containers with crap in them. I think what many of us are asking for are fewer containers than what the usual Bethesda game has, but when you do find containers with loot, they have better rewards. An extreme example is how Diablo style "loot porn" games do it. You open a container or loot a body, and gear literally comes flying out, and much of it is very similar. This happens again and again and again. I would much prefer more rare, yet more substantial rewards, especially in a post apocalyptic setting where it makes more sense.

[cah]

The point is that if you are spending your time looking in trash cans at all, something is wrong. inXile can do better.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

[Zombra]

And how is looking into trash cans wrong?
I could have just walked away, knowing that most likely it never had anything.

If anything worthwhile is hidden in garbage cans, if there is ONE valuable thing in ONE garbage can in the game, then digging through rancid garbage becomes a standard part of gameplay. I can choose not to do it, but it is the "wrong" choice because my characters will be weaker for it. Why should my characters be weaker just because I don't like tiresome game design? Also, many gamers (myself included) are OCD about exploration completeness and we are compelled to "clean out" areas. If it's there, we feel obliged to investigate it. I guess that's our fault, but for us, it's really better to simply not have 200 searchable garbage cans on every block.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

True. And a game that invites me to spend hours and hours clicking through dull inventory transfer screens filled with third-rate loot ... to me that game is trash.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but you're right; it seems like we're simply not going to agree here. You want a high level of nickel-and-dime micromanagement in the game. Sorry to say, I hope you're disappointed.

[Vryheid]

This wasn't a huge deal to me in Fallout New Vegas because you could actually make use of most of the junk you found scattered around. You would NEVER find a unique weapon thrown in a random locker or trash can, so the main reason people sifted through vendor trash was to make a few extra bucks. You weren't missing out skipping these random items if you really didn't want to bother with them.

As for not being able to collect absolutely everything, well, I think that's an issue with your gaming habits and not the game itself.

[ggnomely]

I think I know what your saying.

Let me take FO3 for an example. In any given building, there are dozens of containers, but only a few "types" worth looking in, like:
Medkits
Ammo Boxs
Lockers
etc...

So you want to get rid of all the Misc. containers that rarely have anything? I don't know if i agree with that. I would have to see how much Misc. Items play into the game. Can I sell my Misc. Loot? If so, they should be kept, because many different containers can hold valuable stuff, again like fallout.


TL;DR: Misc. Containers often hold good vendor loot.

[Zombra]

Good post ggnomely. Let me just respond real quick to the tl;dr.

TL;DR: Misc. Containers often hold good vendor loot.

"Vendor loot" is more commonly known as "vendor trash" where I come from. There's a reason for that; it's only good for one thing: selling. If the game economy can be designed without vendor trash, I think it would be better. Hauling trinkets to the pawn shop just isn't good gameplay. It's not challenging, dramatic, or interesting in any way.

[suz]

TL;DR: Misc. Containers often hold good vendor loot.

Bullseye.

You walk through an area that has been scavenged, scavenged again, overscavenged, underscavenged and scavenged all over again. And somehow, after all these scavenges you still find VALUABLE stuff to sell, and not just one forgotten thingy in some partially hidden locker, but pretty much in every locker out there!

Unless some good Samaritan went out of his way to buy this "good vendor loot" from a local vendor, talked to him about a person who's gonna come in and sell him all that crap back and place the said crap in the middle of nowhere just before *drumroll* you arrived to pick it up, it shouldn't be there at all.

[ggnomely]

TL;DR: Misc. Containers often hold good vendor loot.

Bullseye.

You walk through an area that has been scavenged, scavenged again, overscavenged, underscavenged and scavenged all over again. And somehow, after all these scavenges you still find VALUABLE stuff to sell, and not just one forgotten thingy in some partially hidden locker, but pretty much in every locker out there!

Unless some good Samaritan went out of his way to buy this "good vendor loot" from a local vendor, talked to him about a person who's gonna come in and sell him all that crap back and place the said crap in the middle of nowhere just before *drumroll* you arrived to pick it up, it shouldn't be there at all.

I see your point. Definitely places within reach should be picked clean. But for the sake of exploration, there should be some stuff, but more obvious. Like a locked door with a medkit/ammo cache in it, or a scavenger's dwelling with a cache in it.

I think we're saying the same thing at this point. Get rid of redundant empty crates everywhere, in favor of more rare "hot spots'.

[suz]

I think we're saying the same thing at this point. Get rid of redundant empty crates everywhere, in favor of more rare "hot spots'.

Yeps, it would actually reward exploration even more since you actually get to explore->get reward rather than walk 10 meters->start opening 200 containers->get reward.

[Vryheid]

Name ONE game that has you opening "hundreds of containers" with no indication of which ones hold valuable or rare loot. Fallout 3 and New Vegas sure as hell made it obvious, as does pretty much every other highly regarded RPG ever made.

[Mandemon]

Yeah, In FNV you could guess what you would find on container. Med kit? Medical equipment. Toolbox? Most likely crafting components. Mailbox? Most likely magazine. And so on. There were rare weapon containers and they were usually called such.

[newyawk]

In a world where what you have keeps you alive, I think most would bury their important stuff in hidden cached or in walls, under drawers, etc. I would think a metal detector would be an ultimate scavenge tool

[J1811]

I like the option to view all the loot in a room or just all the loot nearby (for the OCDers scavenging through refuge piles).

Bins could still be searchable, just make them consistently full of things which no one wants or would buy. In fact, heavy bin searching could be punished with a charisma penalty. The designers could just assume that anything worthwhile has already been scavaged and sold.

Could also have an extremely large price gap between worthless junk and items actually in demand. And let the player have other ways to make money. For example, it might be worth the time for a starving orphan to look through junk piles (or a really destitute player with no skills) but for a mechanic, a weapons smith, a medic, etc, it would be more effective to work and then buy junk from the starving orphans.

[Zombra]

Anybody remember an RPG called Wizard's Crown from back in the day? Interesting loot mechanics. There was no looting at all on the tactical screen. During action sequences, you couldn't take the time to search a body or a chest. Then at the end of a battle there was just a screen that came up with all the loot for the area. All the wasted time of picking over each corpse and patch of grass was done "off camera". It just said, OK, you search the bodies and find 20 silver pieces, 8 broadswords, 6 suits of leather armor, 6 shields, and an unidentified magic necklace. It was great.

Not saying W2 should do that exactly, but there are other ways to get well-deserved loot to characters besides clicking, clicking, clicking through endless crates, boxes and barrels.

[SagaDC]

Ignoring the nonsense spread out over the last few posts, this is an interesting thread. Honestly, though, the presence of minor loot becomes a matter of personal preference. Personally, I tend to approach most exploration-based RPGs like a packrat. Every item that I suspect or know to be useful in some way gets packed away in my backpack, to be filed neatly in my base of operation until they are needed. Items that I know to be useless are sold to vendors. Now personally, I don't mind doing that, but that's entirely based on my preference. Some people like doing that, others don't. Some people would prefer that treasure is left in plain view, while others like the challenge of hidden (in some case absurdly hidden) treasure chests that have a miniscule chance of every being randomly stumbled over.

Ultimately, though, the minor treasures serve a purpose. Individually, they can be easily ignored, but the difference between a picky player and a player who picks up everything that isn't nailed down can be in the range of thousands - even tens of thousands - of nuyen, bottlecaps, dollars, gold coins, etcetera. Some players will appreciate it and make the effort to collect it, and others can simply pass such minor treasures by in favor of larger items with a better weight-to-value ratio.

Of course, then again, if these miscelaneous items actually DO serve some kind of purpose, ala bartering or crafting or somesuch, then that's a whole different story.

[sync-oz]

I liked this thread. I'd never put my finger on what bothered me before but I think it is the whole unreal aspect of it, as was said. I the stuff is valuable why's it still laying around, I like the idea of less crap and more hotspots of useful stuff. Some locations could still have lots of misc stuff around - places where people hadn't been much.

E.g. - shacks out in the open in the middle of the wasteland would have been picked over time and time again, you'd imagine. And have nothing even vaguely valuable or worthwhile left. There'd be people out there for who even the crappiest stuff had some value or use so they'd have taken it.

Whereas maybe some vault guarded by monsters would still have the detritus of everyday life laying around, as no one would want to face the monsters to loot it when there were easier pickings elsewhere.

[suz]

Let's get back on topic;

Method 1: sprinkle containers everywhere with small amount of useful loot.

vs

Method 2: smaller amount of containers in relatively hidden places with better amounts of useful loot.

vs

Method 3: containers everywhere with crap loot, smaller amount of containers of useful loot in hidden places.

I prefer method 2 as it makes more sense and makes exploration more about exploration than mindless clicking on every box.

[Lantander]

^^ I vote for 2.

[Wanderer]

Let's get back on topic;

Method 1: sprinkle containers everywhere with small amount of useful loot.

vs

Method 2: smaller amount of containers in relatively hidden places with better amounts of useful loot.

vs

Method 3: containers everywhere with crap loot, smaller amount of containers of useful loot in hidden places.

I prefer method 2 as it makes more sense and makes exploration more about exploration than mindless clicking on every box.

Good way of summarizing the discussion. I vote for 2.

[Ratboy]

I didn't think this would be a debate, but I'd like to stoke the fire a bit. With scavenging being on my mind, if I were to find a location, I would clean it out leaving the junk lying around.

If someone had a scavenging skill, or an intuition skill, they might be able to find "scraps or notes" indicating a location where a cache of equipment is stored. It might not be a great example, but Terminator 2 had a hidden cache of equipment under a heavy steel door in the middle of the desert. This is a conceivable idea that appeals to me vs. finding 100's of wrenches and spray cans.

Eg. the old 10 paces west, etc. written on some paper in one scenario / another scenario is gps coordinates written on a wall / gps coordinates written poorly on a wall that turns out to be an ambush , or a tip bribed from a thirsty traveller in a bar, a map location added after helping a traveling caravan fight off raiders, etc.

These vs. 1000's of containers to sort thru.