Promethean Winchester

I know humans are closely related to chimpanzees evolutionarily speaking so I know we theoretically enjoy the verbal equivalent of throwing poop at others. Thank you for verbally throwing poop at me. Here's a banana.

I only outlined 3 concerns: My beloved College Jacket, a single zombie flinch animation negatively effecting combat realism and immersion, and the overpowered nature of Oh Shiz Drops. With those being my three chief concerns, I spent some time fully describing my stances on each topic. Most concerning is the Oh Shiz Drops, which trivialize the difficulty of grander POI's, enabling you to just jump off a roof if there's two irradiated zeds too many. I value and appreciate Oh Shiz Drops and would hate to see them removed, but I also see why they would perhaps be best off removed. Just sharing that insight with the devs. The college jacket, I can live without it, but having an alternative to boost my movement speed in A20 to some capacity would be welcomed warmly. Lastly, the flinching animation where a zombie grabs his face, and picks up more speed, closing the gap between the player, seems a tad unrealistic and immersion-breaking. Perhaps could do with some tweaking. The chief mistake you made, meilodasreh, was assuming that post was for you rather than for the devs. It's not like you can address my concerns. Try reading novels more, it's good for your mind, and the result of reading more will be that you will no longer cower at the sight of many words in paragraph format. It comes across as uncivilized, that you're unwilling to read. You don't want people to think you're an illiterate troglodyte.

@madmole Honestly, I just want to be able to keep empty jars after boiling eggs. Not only that, but the College Jacket giving a +10% boost to running speed is my favorite jacket. Is that going to be removed? I play on Insane Nightmare, and a big part of the RNG responsible for whether I live or die is whether or not I find a sports jacket. Biker zombies on nightmare speed can, 30% of the time, be the end of your first week, you can barely even outrun them because they have nurse level speed and fat zombie power. Meleeing them isn't viable until you're really damn strong, because they typically hit you through the flinching animation; One of their flinching animations has them grab their face, and move forward toward you at an even greater speed than when they were sprinting. Combat against most zombies is manageable, I mean it's all about power attacking before the zombie reaches you, then sprinting toward them at the last second to connect it. Then, from there, you can power attack them again and knock 'em down during their flinch, making finishing them off an easy task. Especially if you got an archery sneak shot before the fight started. But two zombies do not allow this: Lumberjack, and Biker. They're insanely broken on Nightmare speed settings and somehow I feel like it's only their flinching animations which make it so. Even that fat tank-top zombie does the face-grabbing animation where he speeds up and comes closer to you during the animation, it makes fights much more stressful, but that specific zombie is very slow and easy to hold off, you can typically turn around and sprint away in a split second if you see him grab his face. Any speed tier above that zombie though, and you see the problems unfolding. If a biker or lumberjack grabs their face, you're basically just going to get hit, no 2 ways about it. I always need a gun before fighting one of those zombies, if a wood frame in a doorway isn't an immediate option. The animations, perhaps, shouldn't be a "one size fits all zombie types" thing. Individual tailoring of animations based on the speed of the zombie type would be best, with Nightmare speed as the foundation of the tailoring, because whatever's balanced on Nightmare will be balanced on lower movement speed settings as well. The only inorganic aspect to melee combat, as far as I can see since alpha 19, is any situation where you strike a zombie in the face and it comes closer to you rather than flinching to be farther from you. That's the only confusing and immersion-breaking aspect to combat so far. Even if zombies don't "flinch" per se, no zombie is coming closer to us when we thwack their face with a sledgehammer or club or spear. Adjust maybe that one flinching animation, and those of us on Insane Nightmare won't need as many cheese tactics to get by. Mainly just that one flinch animation, where the zombie grabs his/her face and somehow speeds up to close the gap between you two. No impact to the face should see a zombie become more proximate to you, if anything it should always reliably have the opposite effect. Anyway I love the game, and although I didn't like the concept of magical candies at first, that was before I ate an Oh Shiz Drop and jumped off the top of the construction site POI to avoid certain death at the hands of a zombie horde sleeping up there. I see the appeal. It's wildly unrealistic, but it removes some stress from the game, and I value any game which allows the mitigation of stress through the preparedness of the player. Going up high? Bring an Oh Shiz to jump off. Harvesting lots of cobblestone and cement? Eat the rock busters. Got a killing corridor on horde night? Save up some skull crushers. The drugs idea, I totally get. They are drugs, they boost your character. One could easily associate Skull Crushers with PCP or Cocaine. But I just don't think there's a drug out there which could make me fall 300 feet and still be fine... Lol. Not complaining, not criticizing. I use it, I value it. But it does seem like a slightly wild departure from the rooted-in-realism approach you guys used to take with this game. Maybe just remove Oh Shiz Drops... I play permadeath, and it completely trivializes the threat some POI's pose. Compare the sleepers on the roof of a Shotgun Messiah Factory with, and without an Oh Shiz Drop. If you can just jump off to bail in a pinch, that's so unfair in favor of the player that it borders on a cheese tactic. It's the one drug-based candy that I just don't buy into. Anything else can be explained away: Atom Junkies makes you hyper focused, so you know exactly where to throw your explosive item for maximum effect. Let's call it a psychostimulant drug. Etc. But Oh Shiz is a really welcome and useful wild card, which I feel should be considered for removal by you guys. I love it, but it does trivialize a lot of the game's immersive stress in high places. Like that deadly construction site where you walk across the crane, that's what I'm talking about; I ran away from that horde by just jumping off. You can already fall down from there and survive with 2 HP and a broken leg, which is kinda unrealistic already, but surviving it with no harm done to the player at all is pretty stretchy.

If you want 5 traders max in whatever world you create, all different traders too, Jen, Hugh, Joel, Bob, Rekt, then just set the "City Trader" option to "One in Every City", while setting the "Traders" option to "None". Every time I load up a world like that and check, I have 5 different traders, distributed around the map. Adds a more Navezgane feeling to exploration, where you won't run into 2 trader Jens in the same world. My advice, Damocles, is try to add an option for the player to spawn within 1km of a random trader; Within 1km of his or her preferred trader, if you're feeling ambitious. I typically have to walk 2-6 KM to reach the nearest trader with these settings, so it would be really helpful if you implemented an option to allow the player to spawn close to a random trader. I'd use the TPPOI command to teleport to one, but that disables achievements =( This mod is nearly perfect and I'm tremendously grateful for all the time and effort you've put into it. I believe following through with this suggestion will make it truly perfect, at least to my standards of gameplay. Playing in a world without Traders at all is AMAZING with Nitrogen, really opens up more of the world to the player. Having more diverse POI's to search adds to longevity and reduces the finite nature of vanilla worlds, where items are concerned.

But we will still be able to place a plate block in that 1 block opening and stop the zombies from getting through probably

Yeah... I don't think hatch bases need to be removed, because the game isn't balanced for that decision yet. If you remove melee/hatch bases for horde night, then you're punishing any player who doesn't invest into strength for mining. Why? Because you need gun powder (and lead) for bullets, and gunpowder for explosives. The game has way too much pidgeonholing already with the attribute system, we don't need to force everybody into Strength by forcing them to need bullets and gunpowder for horde night. Let them keep meleeing with hatch frames. It's not an exploit as long as you're expending resources on the repairs. Maybe just nerf steel hatches to have way less durability than they currently do. I mean by that logic, you'd have to nerf end-game intellect traps/bases, because you're effectively just standing there watching everything die all night. If they aren't going to nerf that, then I can't see them nerfing hatch bases where you actually have to keep manually fighting all night, managing stamina, repairs, consumables, and keeping a couple stacks of explosives or bullets on-hand in case of emergencies. It ain't broke, and it doesn't need to be fixed. It's a play style. A very efficient and badass one in the early-game, which has greatly reduced effectiveness in mid-late game when cops and demolishers start showing up. At that point you need to use explosives and bullets, but you'll have the gear required for mining whether you've invested in miner 69er/motherlode or not.

Like you said it's a far cry from exploitation as the ramps used to be. Just yesterday the zombies broke through my melee killing corridor on day 14 BM, on Insane Nightmare perma, and I had to retreat to phase 2 of my base, where I climb atop twin towers with Iron Bar walkways and lob explosives down below as they pile up. Hatches do hold off zombies and you can do a lot of damage to the horde before it breaks through, but that was day 14... When demolishers and cops and irradiated zeds start showing up, it won't be so easy as eating a Skull Crusher and a Coffee and going to town with power attacks. Dreading those days when one demolisher triggered will just obliterate the entrance to my base and kiss my killing corridor goodbye. At that point... I don't know, more towers I suppose. This picture is a "Hunter's Blind" that I made, it's good for roaming Direwolves and Bears but it definitely can't withstand a strong horde. I tried upgrading the hatches to steel and the blind to concrete, but since it's not a corridor you have to worry about multiple hatches at once and it gets to be a bit much to focus on repairing them between everything else. I was wondering, I heard explosive weapons don't trigger Demolishers to explode. Is it intended for the future, for demolishers to be triggered by explosive weaponry? I'm dreading it, but honestly it would be one of those "It sucks but it belongs" updates. "As I equip my club and stare into the abyss, it stares back into me, and I whisper under my breath; Mama didn't raise no coward. I ran into the factory, and emerged to tell this story, battered and broken, covered in blood with 7 critical injuries and 2 hp, some hours later." Never give up lol

If I clear the Shotgun Messiah Factory with a level 1 character and no skill investment whatsoever, on Insane Nightmare mode, will you guys put in a toggle option for old school skill progression and chaotic loot? Can I earn it? I'll livestream every attempt until I earn it lmmfao. I will do ANYTHING. I will clear the Shotgun Messiah Factory with a level 1 wooden club and my good intentions beginning to end no editing on the most difficult settings possible to literally earn this, and you gotta understand, that's probably like months of suffering to achieve it. Worth it, I would commit.

But I doubt you'd have that surging milestone in concurrent players though if the core game wasn't made to be more grindy. Skyrim is a streamlined experience because you can jump on a forge to get restoration to 40 anytime you want, that's the definition of streamlined is it not? What you guys did was added more barriers to leveling and loot progression to drag it out for each player, and that led to more concurrent players because it takes more time now for players to get the same amount of satisfaction and fulfillment that they used to get. Before, 70 day runs were the average, and people just wanted to find new seeds run after run, base up in new POI's (Although you guys left the MD5 error unfixed for a year), and look for cool environments in RWG, get different loot every run, and have new weapons and mechanics and better graphics with time. Now most people just play until day 30, maybe character level 60-80, then try a new attribute in a new world with a new character. It definitely doesn't promote long-term investment in its current build. A16 was so good for long-term investment, but yeah obviously you guys left glaring bugs in it that gave it a horrible reputation on consoles and as a result on PC too, so you quickly scrambled to reinvent your game to stop the bad PR and pretend you had the solution all along. All you really had to do was build on A16 with these new weapons and perks without adding attributes and making the gameplay experience less streamlined. I know you guys feel like you have it figured out and I know it can't be changed. I'm just explaining why you guys are deluded in thinking so and I'm coming across as rude but I'm just being objective. A longer experience is not streamlining, and concurrent players just means you've created a game formula that denies people long term fulfillment. A16 was better for that, minus the state of the animations and everything else. Like I said, the soul is kind of gone. And it's simple deduction that the Telltale fiasco had everything to do with you guys reinventing the game. You're running a business, make your paper. Not here to judge that, just here to say you guys shouldn't throw away the old progression system entirely. It's a mistake. It should be preserved, even as a toggle option in the world-creation menu. Everybody who voted that they liked A17 better were just the people who stuck around after you changed it, them and anybody new who came after the changes. Nobody voted who preferred A16... I certainly didn't, because they, and I, were gone for a while. After the poor console port, the Telltale situation, and you guys dramatically changing the experience on PC with the attribute system, a lot of people just left for a while and felt it was going under. Votes don't mean much when you're only surrounded by supporters. Now, for the graphics, I deal with the new attribute system, but my disappointment is a constant thing. It used to truly feel better to play this game, it was the difference between crack and coke. Now it's crack

I finished my first horde ever on Insane Nightmare last night, I made a melee killing corridor to use my sledgehammer in. At the end, for the day 14 bloodmoon, I'm constructing twin towers connected by an Iron bar bridge, with iron bar walkways around the top of each tower; That's where I'll go if they breach my killing corridor, entering phase two, where I rain death down on them from above with pipe bombs aplenty. This game is still really fun at times, may not be as fun as it used to be in terms of dopamine hits and the anticipation of "Is there a mining helmet in this car or a piece of cloth?" but it's still pretty fun. But I have to admit... Getting pretty tired of my first 20 POIs having nothing but stone and blunderbuss crap. It's not just weaker weapons, it's also more unrealistic and less conducive to immersion. When I crack open a gun safe in a gun store I don't feel like I should find 4 stone arrows, a homemade Blunderbuss, and a shovel. Rather than forcing stone tools down everyone's throats, you could literally remove them entirely and the game would only benefit from it. Just make it next to impossible to survive, make Insane Nightmare Permadeath the game's base ruleset, bring back chaotic loot, and level by doing. That way every run, every player has an adrenaline rush of the highest order, every player adapts to the weapons they find, progresses through level-by-doing, and allows the free-form of the world's exploration and loot found to define their character in the early-game, until they get what they'd prefer in the mid-game, and slowly invest into everything they'd like to have in the end-game. You can manipulate people into more playthroughs to ramp up play time on steam, through a gameplay style that is more grindy and less fun like the attribute style and restricted loot, but it's just that, more grindy and less fun. A disservice. Genuinely feels like in the end, Zomboid might beat you guys in terms of game quality, only because those developers are leaning into the gritty realism and gameplay elements rather than the player grind and the graphics. I don't get terrific immersion from 7 days the way I would from Zomboid or Darkwood, only because it's easy to tell you guys sold the soul of the game to increase play time and make it more grindy. I have this dream, deep down, inside my heart... That you guys are just using the accessibility of Alpha 19 to make money, to recover from the telltale fiasco, and that it's your intention to, in the end, at least make a toggle option upon world creation which allows for chaotic loot, and freeform non-attribute-based leveling. I'm holding out hope that you guys are pretending to be EA in simplifying your game so you can pull a Hello Games at the last minute lol. Look at Star Wars Battlefront right, it was such a disappointment. All graphics, but a fraction of the available heroes compared to the PS2 version, it had space battles, but you couldn't land in the enemy starship and sabotage it from inside. There was also a mere fraction of available planets and maps. They made a good game worse just because graphics, not gameplay, was EA's focus. But the other end of that developer spectrum is Hello Games, the redemption of the ineffectual, and the implementation of whatever will make everyone happy, in the end. That's all I'm hoping for... That in the end, Alpha 16 gameplay with chaotic loot and free-form leveling will be an option, alongside the graphical improvements we're seeing today. I know jumping repeatedly so you can level up your jumping skill is stupid but killing zombies to be a better miner is more stupid lol. At least level by doing is in alignment with reality, and you could easily explain-away the fact that player characters don't need sleep; They are immune to zombification, but the virus which zombified everyone else made us no longer need sleep. It ramped up every survivor's vitality who was fortunate enough to be immune to its entropic effects. Bam, plot explanation for not needing sleep in 7dtd.

I'm on day 7 right now, still haven't died, Insane Nightmare. I'm using the Sledge instead of the wooden club and I'm having a LOT of fun with it

Anyway Roland I have a lot of respect for how you probably get a lot of people like me who stir the pot and cause trouble, yet you always try to create relatability and understanding rather than firing back. I've seen it too many times where you temper yourself and be the bigger man, and try to reason with people who are frustrated, and I've seen it happen several times where I was the frustrated person. I just want to, of my own volition, for no real reason, express the fact that I respect and appreciate the person you are. It's a fine example of how to conduct oneself.

You try to make it through Insane Nightmare mode with a pure perception build with minimal investment in strength and agility and let me know how that works out for you lol. The club and sledge are the only weapons which reliably knock enemies down, it's necessary to use them and invest in them. Combat is a science on Insane Nightmare: Always get a sneak archery shot whenever possible, because that makes you knock down the enemy easier with the club or sledge once they reach you. Use wood frames and the spear for buried treasure quests, so you can hit them, and they can't hit you. Use the knife to cause bleeds, to expediate that process. Of course I could spec into agility to slow the speed of zombies with bleeds, making them more manageable. But I absolutely have to invest in sexy rex for club/sledge efficiency first, there's no way around that. Then I need intellect, there's no way around that. I need a forge, workbench, mixer, chem station, etc. You simply reduce your chances of survival significantly if you don't take that linear path. I like the level by doing aspect because since I am using every single weapon, maybe I'd slowly get better with all of them. Spears/knives for buried treasure, bow/club for quests and wilderness, etc. Using frames and hatches as needed to safe-spot the enemies, repairing the frame/hatch as needed periodically. Glock9 does a good job of succeeding, but you just know that if he deviated from Strength, he'd fail. That's not to say he's at all flawed in any way, he's just using the only viable path to succeed on such a difficulty. My only gripe is how trader-centric the meta is. Traders used to be an afterthought and your survival came first, but now it's like survival comes second and basing up near the trader comes first. I DO appreciate profoundly, the fact that different weapons have different uses. I know for a fact that it's safer to use spears and knife-bleeds for those buried treasure quests, because the range of my club was not long enough to ensure I could hit them and they couldn't hit me. Archery and clubs are dope for wilderness kills, just get that sneak shot and you'll floor 'em with the first power attack to the head with your club. I find myself using every weapon for different contexts... I just wish I was leveling my proficiency in the weapons while I did, it would feel organic. The issue with Attributes is you'll always have imbalance, Strength and Agility are objectively superior, with Fortitude being a close second place, but fist weapons are bunk crap compared to anything else. @%$# range, @%$# damage, just no whump factor. Remove the attributes and restore leveling by doing, and at least a person will be able to choose the perks they want, use the weapons they want, and won't be pidgeonholed into some poorly curated build that nobody asked for. It would be particularly dope if you simply had a gameplay style slider, where one end was level by doing A16 type stuff, and the other end was attribute stuff. Because sadly when you elect for one you do in essence punish anybody who liked the other. And yeah, I've felt the game just hasn't had the same appeal since A16. It looks better now but feels worse and I can't articulate it any other way, I should get better at mining by mining. It should build my muscles and grant me more endurance while doing it, over the long haul. I shouldn't have to kill 16 zombies to unlock a point so that I can spend it on an attribute, then do the same thing again, then unlock 2 more points to get a little better at mining. It just feels inorganic and hollow. But clearly you can see, since I quit smoking, although still rough around the edges, I'm not the same ass hat lol. Cigarettes just make emotionally challenged people become even more emotionally challenged, I think it's purely the nicotine and how it compels you toward anxiousness.

I actually really agree with this. Attributes were a multiplayer-centric imposition on EVERYBODY playing single-player. Is it just me, or did the free-form leveling and leveling-by-doing of Alpha 16 feel more satisfying all across the board than leveling in its current iteration? I mean yeah the linear path of basing up near a trader and repeating quests is fun for a while, but after a time I just start craving the freedom of prior game builds. Now every run I do is the same; I even specialize into Strength every time, and just base up at the trader and do quests. Agility is almost - almost - as good as Strength. You have Run & Gun and plenty of firearms, and can kite sprinters with bleed damage. But Strength is objectively superior, even with Parkour considered. I play Insane Nightmare now, to offset the intense boredom of the game's general experience. It's the same every time, but at least it's difficult, and my chance of success is so low that I can never get too bored of how they redesigned progression. Chaotic loot, man... Imagine that, going into a tool store and finding tools made of Iron or Steel. The game used to be so good. But they didn't think too much about how these changes would effect the game... They've spent nearly a decade in alpha and I think they're losing their collective creative vision. It's a dumpster fire now

Honestly it started as me quitting smoking and being a jerk for its own sake yesterday, but I did decide to sort of lean into it today for comedic value, for anyone who's aware of just how ridiculous I sounded yesterday yeah lol