Item Value Adjustments

[Rennev]

The weapons that common bandits carries is clearly too overvalued, in order to make production and business a worthwhile investment the value of common loot has to be tuned down....

[Sleeter]

Why? Who are you competing against for it to need to balance against enterprise? It's nice to find a game that does away with the notion that because it's on mook a it has no value. What I would rather see is mook loot coming from somewhere, rather than the ether. Mooks getting outfitted by their bases. Then the item would have in-game origin and value, and you could disarm the bandit factions by destroying their production methods.

[Rennev]

True enough there is no competing factor (yet?) in the game. You can however try and find the more time-affordable method of getting wealthy. Where you'd perhaps think that making rum would be one of the more generating factors, you may instead lure dust bandits to the closest town.

That's why I think tuning it down would be a healthy change to the game. Such a change would demand you to eventually find more creative methods of income.

[Sleeter]

I still don't see that lowering the values of the items is a good way forward. Surely stopping bandits from being so suicidal would be better? If they were not so suicidal then killing them would be less trivial. The value of their gear isn't the problem, their AI is.

Also, you don't have to use the technique you suggest. I know of it, yet don't make use of it. It's single player, so you can make it as easy or hard as you choose. No one loses out, people who want to can gain, no one is hurt. It's a poor hack to fudge the value of items simply because you don't want other people to use this technique.

As for finding the most time-efficient method of gaining money, that's another thing you can do, but don't have to. You choose to if you want. I don't see the value of the money in the game, so I play a different, more social-oriented/build-oriented game.

[Rennev]

The NPC general survival instinct is the self preservation mode, but it simply makes the character protect himself and in very rare circumstances makes him run away (e.g. if he was downed and his weapons was looted).

Making bandits stay away from the towns at all times is possible but that would be extremely dull, making them calculate the probability of a successful raid contra a failed one before jumping into it is also possible but predictablymore difficult than decreasing the value of their items.

You talk about how it is singleplayer and how it is a personal choice to use this method or not. Well yeah, and I could argue the same case if all merchant in Skyrim carried ten thousand gold coins. But nonetheless such a cheap cheat should not be an integrated part of the game because everyone that desires to exploit the game still has the magic commands... It is afterall a singleplayer game as you suggested.

Why does it seem reasonable for a bandit group to carry the worth of say 2-3000 cats anyways?

[Sleeter]

The NPC general survival instinct is the self preservation mode, but it simply makes the character protect himself and in very rare circumstances makes him run away (e.g. if he was downed and his weapons was looted).

Making bandits stay away from the towns at all times is possible but that would be extremely dull, making them calculate the probability of a successful raid contra a failed one before jumping into it is also possible but predictablymore difficult than decreasing the value of their items.

Not at all times, no. But 4 hungry bandits should not follow you like you're the Pied Piper right into 10 town guards. It might be 'dull' but it's an infinitely better solution to the problem of the gear you're able to loot being worth 'too much' for so little effort. It's also not very difficult to put in a conditional check to stop bandits happily and moronically skipping along behind you right into the jaws of certain doom. You just have them check how many are in their group and how close they are to town. Too close to a big town and then they need to check if the goodies they're chasing is worth the risks involved. It's just maths and it's easy. It's also much more satisfying than making them kiteable into certain death.

You talk about how it is singleplayer and how it is a personal choice to use this method or not. Well yeah, and I could argue the same case if all merchant in Skyrim carried ten thousand gold coins. But nonetheless such a cheap cheat should not be an integrated part of the game because everyone that desires to exploit the game still has the magic commands... It is afterall a singleplayer game as you suggested.

I would argue the exact same thing in Skyrim, yes. The 'trash' loot should be actually of reasonable value. You would not go out, as a bandit, with trash and expect to achieve anything. You'd equip yourself with the best you could or you're dead meat. Good equipment should be worth something. I wouldn't argue that all traders should have tens of thousands of gold. I would argue that they should have an amount relative to the goods they're selling and the location they're in. A busy city vendor selling high value goods should probably have tens of thousands of gold. A peasant village trader selling sustenance items should not. A vendor with tens of thousands of gold should also have some form of guard-security to stop them being easy to loot and rob, too.

Why does it seem reasonable for a bandit group to carry the worth of say 2-3000 cats anyways?

Because they're going out and risking their lives by fighting people, ambushing them and trying to kill them for their goods. They wouldn't do that with trash. They'd do it with the best they can get their hands on. They'd approach it like the player approaches it. They wouldn't go out with the most useless, worthless weapons and armour. They'd get the best they possibly could to give them the best chance of success. 2-3k cats is nothing anyway. You can earn that with ease. You start with 1k as a nobody. Bandits should have a few times your starting loot because they have the skills to achieve that level of loot themselves.

Fix the suicidal tenancies of bandits and the value of their loot ceases to be an issue in the slightest because you have to work harder for it. Lowering the value of their loot is a weak, lazy hack and I would urge any game designer away from such hacks. In this case I would hate to see it, given how good this game is, how high the realism is, even in its Alpha state.