Roland
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Posts posted by Roland
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9 hours ago, eganonstwr said:
you came out with a perfect name hahaha
Cool. So can you just start calling it that and be satisfied....?
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16 minutes ago, meganoth said:
What if they simply craft missing pieces when they have the time, i.e. at night ?
When you should be sleeping?!? Cheese alert!!!1 -
52 minutes ago, zztong said:
Efficient or Inefficient, exploit or not an exploit -- all opinion, so I'll leave those alone. I don't care to have my play labeled as "exploitive" because I don't think I'm cheating. I'm just playing. But I get that you're not necessarily calling that an insult so much as a comparative to your own ideal game.
Yes, I was only referring to it as feeling like an exploit within my own sensibilities and not proclaiming your playstyle cheating. My only judgement/side eye for other people's playstyles are for those who repeatedly do things that lead to them not having fun. If the way someone plays is fun then it is right and good then I'm happy for them and I am perfectly willing to self-limit and enforce my own rules for myself rather than try to get the game to be changed in order to enforce the way I like to play.
I know that sometimes changes occur that bungle up someone's play style and I understand why that leads to anger. When that happens to me (and it has happened) I simply adjust my own rules and objectives to get to the fun again.
Sometimes I wonder about folks who demand the balance be changed to prevent something if they've thought it through that such changes enforced would step on many many toes and just because they don't have will power to self-enforce rules if the game doesn't force it--that doesn't mean the devs aren't doing their jobs if they decide to leave things on the open-ended side of the spectrum or leave it to modders to enforce some different ruleset.
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19 hours ago, zztong said:
I was trying to envision what long-term water scarcity goals might have been. Limiting duct tape is what I hear other players talk about, but I didn't know if that was TFP's goal. If you say there's not a long-term scarcity goal, then nobody is trying to limit duct tape, or at least not trying to use water to limit it.
I like to think I understood you, but I do seem to misunderstand people from time to time.
On the long term I don't think TFP wants to limit anything. I think that ideally they would like there to be a progression from scarcity to abundance with a period of time in there where you might have to make choices for how you use your resources because there isn't enough to do everything. That will, of course, be truer for those who play less efficiently than those who play more efficiently. I don't think TFP can or even wants to balance it into a one balance fits all-- especially since their design philosophy is to allow multiple paths to get what you want. This means that there probably will be very little to no preventative measures taken to limit people from rushing the progression if they so choose. Some people rush the progression and feel great fulfillment and fun. Others rush the progression and by so doing ruin the fun for themselves. I know, for myself, rushing the progression would ruin the fun so I make conscious choices to not rush.
19 hours ago, zztong said:I think I see, but you tell me...
You craft Dew Collectors and are satisfied as you have built your base. Each day you harvest Potable Water.
Each Day I harvest some Murky Water from a water source. I craft Potable Water at a Camp Fire and am satisfied.
The comparison seems equal, but ultimately a matter of taste.
I don't see harvesting Murky Water from a water source as an equivalent of using the creative menu. I see it as an equivalent to harvesting clay.
You're viewing the equality after the dew collectors are built. I agree that once I have my farm of dew collectors and you have your stack of empty jars the effort and gameplay loop for getting water is very similar. You take your stack of jars to a source and fill them up and bring them back to boil. I collect my water from each collector and bring them back. You can more easily gather tons of more water but you still have to boil it while I am limited to the number of collectors I've built but they are already boiled so to speak.
That comparison is essentially equal but a matter of taste, yes. The part that I feel is better and more enjoyable is the process of building that collector farm. I feel like the process of gathering the resources and the money to purchase the filters and the progressive nature of crafting more and more collectors to the point where I feel I'm good for the rest of the game is akin to building a base with materials I harvested myself.
Reusable empty jars along with more to be found as you naturally scavenge feels like a free trip to the point where water is no longer an issue. That feels like just being gifted all the building materials for the base I'm going to build.
Now, I know not everyone enjoys crafting the collector farms. I can understand if they dislike that gameplay loop, why they might wish for the old version. To them, I can only hope that mods make their fun great again. But for me, I throw away all the empty jars I get because then there is absolutely no need for dew collectors and I want to build my farm just as much as I want to establish my base and get my food farm going and my crafting stations and my vehicles.
It is also why I feel that there is currently too much murky water in loot. It used to be more scarce and you were definitely more dependent upon getting a dew collector farm established. But that is my brand of fun that not everyone is going to share.
19 hours ago, zztong said:You're limiting yourself to 1 quest per day. That is the significant difference. You're earning Dukes at 1/2 to 1/3 my rate.
Do you stay in your base at night? If so, that's another difference. Once I've made a couple of padded armor pieces, I'll be out at night hunting, foraging, and maybe doing a quest to turn in when the trader opens. (The buried supplies quests are great at night in the early days.)
I'd love to know what you'd consider exploitive. I don't think I'm doing anything exploitive.
I'm assuming different spending priorities are at play here too. In the early game, I'll spend my Dukes on filters for Dew Collectors (Vanilla) or save them (Modded). I craft or loot everything I use. I'll have a bicycle from completing tier 1 quests around day 3 or 4.
So one of the big hang-ups I have with my own sense of immersion is time. I feel that there is just way too much that we can accomplish in a 24-hour period of time beyond what we could in real life. Everyone has their real life vs game life hang-ups and this one is mine. I don't complain or call for limiting factors to be added to the game to make it more even and honestly I wouldn't want it to mirror real life since that would just be boring. With a stone axe I would be hacking at the same tree for three weeks before it came down. BUT....the amount of trees we can chop down with a stone axe or any axe for that matter is too unrealistic for me to bear and that is simply one of many many things. You guys should check out Nate Bargatze's bit about digging a hole...lol
In general, I try to do in a day's time what I feel is more realistic while still fun. I reduce loot to 50% at times and play 30 minute days at times and increase block hp all to slow me down in what I can accomplish in a typical day's timeframe. I do enjoy those settings but they have other drawbacks. So a lot of the time I play default but just pace myself on purpose-- because for whatever reason I am hyper-aware about what I feel is our exploitive ability to unnaturally accomplish so much so fast. I know we can unnaturally carry more than reality allows and crops grow unnaturally fast and this is a fantasy game about zombies-- which is why I don't ever press my view that even in natural play without even trying to rush the progression, we still have this super advantage that makes survival a lot easier than it would be. It's just simpler for me to make objectives for myself each day that I feel are realistic enough to still be fun as a game and then accomplish those objectives and definitely don't try to maximize every single drop of time to getting ahead as quickly as possible since that just goes against my grain.
Night time is interesting. If I stay in my base and organize stuff, spend my skill points, cook, craft, and do a bit of construction I don't feel too bad that I would normally be sleeping at night. But if I go out adventuring completing quests and looting POIs then I do feel that I'm taking advantage of the game's limitation that we don't sleep and it feels wrong to me. One of the advantages of 30 minute days is that the nights are much shorter-- but then the downside is that you never get a really epic horde night either. So, again, I tend to play default most of the time and try not to be too active at night. Weird, I know and probably not good to develop limitations for everyone for the vanilla version just because I feel like we should all be sleeping anyway.
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18 hours ago, Krougal said:
I don't know how you had these magical jars from heaven in A20, for some reason my A20 memory is a bit foggy, maybe I was doing something wrong, but I can tell you A19 and earlier, I dug up plenty of sand to make glass jars by the hundreds. Hardly a non-issue or something non-trivial. I feel like I wasn't doing that in A20, probably because of the removal of ethanol, which was the main reason to make jars en masse. Re-usable containers are well re-usable, so you just don't need as many.
In A20 there were tons of empty jars, jars of water, jars of murky water, jars of tea and other drinks in various loot containers spread all over the map. Every time you drank a drink of any kind you would get an empty jar returned. That is how jars magically would build up in your inventory so quickly because you would find additional jars constantly and jars you already possessed never got used up ever so that personally, I never had to craft jars. I always had plenty.
Now it's just drinks you find. You drink it and it is gone. No snowball effect.
18 hours ago, Krougal said:I didn't mangle anything, it simply isn't a struggle. The first day EVERYTHING is a struggle, because you have next to nothing. You need to start doing a little bit of everything, there are certain immediate priorities that are common to everyone no matter their playstyle or build. Basic survival of course being foremost of those.
You mangled the meaning of what I posted before your answer. I said that TFP did not intend there to be a long term struggle with water and that it was expected for players to solve their water survival issues during the early game. You then came back and said you were glad that TFP did not intend there to be any struggle at all because, in your opinion, there never is any struggle at all and TFP failed if they were trying to create a struggle so it was good that their goal wasn't trying to create a struggle for water.
I didn't say what you thought I was saying so I clarified it. We just will have to agree to disagree that the new system does not create any more of a struggle than the old system did.
18 hours ago, Krougal said:As to the rest, I'm done, you used to be fun to have discussions with but I feel like you'd rather argue over semantics on everything with everyone these days and it's starting to feel like talking to a lawyer. I wasn't talking about this particular change being a knee-jerk reaction. I was talking about how they have added and removed things over the years. I don't feel like they devote the time to tuning anything as they add and scrap systems wholesale. I didn't just show up here yesterday, I've been playing this game for many builds.
Oops, sorry. I'm not trying to be unfun. There tends to be a lot of speculation about dev motivation that I happen to have an inside view about so it isn't really semantics I'm quibbling over rather than refuting a wildly speculative guess at why and how the devs updated the game the way they did with my actual witness of how it went down. I know for players it was A20 one day and then A21 the next day so changes can seem sudden but for internal staff it was A21 for close to a year before A21 released so nothing about it was sudden or untested by time you got your hands on it. The same goes for every other change. We played with the change from LBD to centralized skillpoints to shop for perks for months and months before A17 dropped. That wasn't some sudden whimsical change. In fact, I can't think of a single change over the years that was enacted on the night before an update was released to the public. They were all played to death by internal staff well before the release.
So even though you've been around for years, if you actually feel like changes are made suddenly and without thought, playtesting, and planning then you aren't thinking it through from the perspective of the development team. Maybe if the dev cycle between each alpha was only a month or two you could claim not enough time spent on these changes but these dev cycles have lasted 1-1.5 years and most of the time the major gameplay changes we've seen were finished at least 6 months before release.
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In light of the recent Unity fee debacle, the answer is still no. TFP won't be switching engines for 7 Days to Die. The most recent backpedal from Unity means that TFP is safe from user install fees provided they don't update to a post-January 2024 version. I think there is one additional version they can upgrade to beyond their current version and still avoid the new fees. Whether or not they decide to do that or simply release their game with the current version remains to be seen. But regardlesss, it will be a version of Unity.
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Go set up an outpost near one of your other traders and spend a few days away. See if the screamers follow you to your next area. If they do, then there is probably a bug.
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4 hours ago, Krougal said:
I feel like you and Meganoth have fed that assumption. I am not interested in getting into a @%$#ing match over it and I'm not going to go back and cite posts where he said/she said, but right or wrong, that is where I got that assumption.
um...sorry?
4 hours ago, Krougal said:My own point in my last post still stands. It is not a struggle, as I iterated what was done is ineffective in making it a struggle, so it is good if you say that is not what TFP intended, because it doesn't work.
So now I see why you might have gotten a false impression from a post of mine previously because you pretty much just mangled what I said this time and are setting yourself up for a new false impression. Let me be clear:
TFP's goal was for water survival to be more of a struggle than it has been historically in this game. The struggle was not intended to be one that lasts weeks and weeks and weeks into your playthrough but simply introduces a process by which you would need to secure an abundance of water.
A20 with reusable empty glass jars: Abundance achieved immediately and without much effort. You can largely ignore it and yet you find yourself with stacks of jars that can all be filled at once.
A21 with no empty glass jars: Abundance achieved after exerting effort. If you ignore it you can find yourself dying of thirst so you must expend some time and effort in securing your abundance.
Is there a struggle in the early game for water beyond what there once was? Absolutely. More experienced players adjusted quickly and felt less of a struggle, but less experienced players definitely reported a struggle. Beyond the struggle, in the new system there is definitely a greater need to make tea and better drinks rather than simply drinking water all the time even after you have your infrastructure in place. For those who use water for other things besides drinking there are more times in the current system where you must choose how to allocate your water. This was never an issue or a choice to be made in the old system.
I never said that TFP didn't intend to increase the struggle for water. I said that the struggle shouldn't extend beyond the early game once you have dew collectors in place or an income going where you can buy all you need-- whichever path you wish to follow. Some people play so efficiently that they can get 4-5 dew collectors up and running in the first few days but others take a week or two to get to that point. Either way, the water struggle comes to an end relatively early in the game which is what the devs intended but it does require more effort to execute than in the past which is also what the devs intended.
4 hours ago, Krougal said:So why am I making a big deal out of something that doesn't make a lot of difference to me? Maybe because it seems like a better experience to provide a few more options. and it doesn't go against what seems to have become the focus of the argument. A lot of the systems in the game that I don't particularly care for the make or break would just be a bit of tweaking and re-balancing. I still feels like there is too much knee-jerk adding and removing things instead of putting time into tuning them.
It does make a big difference to me. Glass jars feels like playing with the creative menu activated to me. They make the first few days to the first couple weeks (Depending on how crazy efficiently you play) completely inconsequential. I personally enjoy having to juggle dew collector, shelter, food, quests, scavenging, resource gathering, etc and I feel it would be a step backward to remove one of the balls I'm currently juggling and just go back to automatically having infinite water. As I stated, I throw away all the glass jars I acquire while playing District Zero because I very much enjoy the new system. It's amazing how often I have to throw jars away-- they build up so quickly and without the slightest effort....
As far as knee-jerk adding or removing things, where have you gotten that idea? A knee-jerk is a reactionary change because you are fearful of the backlash. The mantra for the glass jars has always been "Nobody asked for this change, nobody wanted this change". So who the heck were the devs reacting to when they removed the glass jars? Furthermore, this change was enacted early in the A21 development cycle. There was over a year of playtesting and adjustments made and plenty of time for the devs to choose to go back and revert if after months of playing it they felt it was a bad change. No, there was nothing knee-jerk or sudden about the water overhaul.
Now, if the devs listened to you and other critics of the system right now and got rid of it for A21.3, THAT would be the epitome of a knee-jerk change. That's why you shouldn't expect any changes other than small adjustments until at least A22 or A23.
The adjustment I personally would make would be to reduce the amount of murky water that drops in containers closer to the original amount. It is far too generous right now, imo.
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3 hours ago, zztong said:
There are no TFP long-term goals for water scarcity, so infinite water is irrelevant. Duct tape doesn't matter, or any other recipe, if I understand you correctly.
There is no intent for long-term water scarcity. It is something that is intended for the player to solve in the early game. . I have no idea what you mean by “duct tape doesn’t matter, or any other recipe” so I don’t know if you understood me or not. 😀3 hours ago, zztong said:Neither presents more than a day of struggle or progression, unless you're a new player and need time to figure out recipes and understand the game. Water scarcity really puts them into an interesting bind.
I doubt there is any system that is going to be able to stump a veteran of the game or feel particularly challenging unless it is intentionally punitive or draconian for that very purpose which, of course, would be disastrous for new players.
The difference as I see it for myself is that re-usable empty jars that can be infinitely refilled at a nearby water source is too insignificant for my liking. Even if the time frame of solving water ends up being about the same for someone willing to min/max questing and trader economics, at least there is some conscious effort to achieve an actual objective.
The new system involves scavenging for materials in order to craft objects that will produce water. I like that level of significance for me putting effort into getting the objective I want.
It is the exact difference in feeling I get between building a base from resources I harvested myself vs opening the creative menu and taking stacks of everything I want in order to build.
3 hours ago, zztong said:But I'm into survival, so I prioritize food and water. You suggest it takes a week to solve water scarcity, so you're priorities are elsewhere. You must not buy a cooking pot before all else. I assume we're both doing quests, as that's how I'd find/afford a cooking pot. Quests are dropping murky water, which I'll be purifying. Are you just drinking murky water for a week until you get a bicycle, or something? I think we're playing the same length days (60 minutes).
I limit myself to one quest at most in a day. I explore POIs without a quest attached. I feel that, much like empty jars are for water, quests are OP for general progression. I do buy a pot on day 2 if I don’t find one on day one. I’m definitely still at tier one quests by time the first bloodmoon comes and my first few collector gets built anywhere from Day 6-8.
There is more murky water in loot than there initially was when the new system was implemented so I don’t drink murky water as often as I have in the past. If I get a vitamin I will often pop it and go drink directly from a water source.
Another result of the new system that I like is that I cook and drink more teas and drinks rather than just drinking water all the time. In the old system there was such a glut of water that it was just easy to drink five jars of water because there was always plenty. In the new system I want to always have tea because it goes farther.
4 hours ago, zztong said:Also, this infinite murky water still commits you to spending time purifying it plus the fuel and the resulting heat. By comparison, the Dew Collectors represent only an initial challenge to afford a filter and a source of heat. You effectively get infinite water once you have some number of Dew Collectors. For me, that number was around 3-4.
Honestly, I see very little difference.
Sounds like you play much more efficiently than I do. A lot of people who say they prioritize survival often mean that they are willing to take advantage of anything the game allows since to do less wouldn’t be a survival mindset. I try not to take advantage of things the game allows that feels exploitive.
3-4 dew collectors for me would take 2-3 game weeks which is a big difference from A20 which delivered infinite water in 2-3 game days and without even focusing any effort on it. When empty jars are present they just flow into your inventory and snowball to stacks and stacks without any appreciable effort.
Im glad your mod makes the game more pleasant for you. To me, empty jars just feel like cheating now and as I’m currently playing a mod that has them, I feel compelled to throw them out and ignore them so I can enjoy the otherwise great overhaul mod.
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19 hours ago, Krougal said:
trying to make water scarce
2 hours ago, zztong said:long-term scarcity.
I think people have a false assumption going that TFP for some reason wants players to have to worry about water for their entire playthrough and that if a system of obtaining and stockpiling water somehow solves the player's water issue, then that system is broken.
Water survival should get solved during the course of the game and it shouldn't be something the player must struggle with after a certain amount of time spent working to achieve self-reliance in that area.
The problem of an infinite water source and infinitely lasting reusable jars is that the snowball effect of that system means that water survival is solved on day one, with zero struggle or progression. There is zero expense to that system or any kind of diminishing returns so the snowball rockets down that hill becoming an avalanche in mere moments.
The current system, depending on how you play, can take a couple of days to a full week before you have your water source established and reach the point where the struggle is gone. In either case, it does require the player to focus on solving the issue at the opportunity cost of doing other early-game tasks which is an aspect of the new system that I greatly appreciate.
How long SHOULD the player need to struggle with water? I don't know. In my games it all gets solved sometime within the first week of game time. Some playthroughs I end up needing to drink some murky water and others I never do. But in every case, the objective to solve my water issue is a real objective that I pursue and sink time into accomplishing.
When I went back to play A20 and more recently when I tried the mod District Zero, it felt akin to having the creative menu on for water as the stack of empty jars just automatically built up in my inventory without any conscious effort. It was just free and didn't steal my focus from other objectives at all. District Zero's jars are more scarce than A20 but still, once I found a jar it was mine forever and the stack would've grown if I hadn't decided to just throw away all empty jars whenever I noticed them in my inventory.
I'm certain TFP could iterate the current system to something that allowed for some harvesting of water from water sources in some limited way to prevent the snowball effect that reusable empty jars created and maybe they will if there's time before the end. If they do, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed.
But whatever system they land on it will also have the goal of creating a short-term objective to solving the water issue. There is no search for a system that creates a long-term or whole playthrough struggle for water survival. It is meant to be solved in the early game.
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Every day I try to get 130 students to look into math equations and every day they try to avoid it at all costs...
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1 hour ago, Kalen said:
I have found that I can't always drink from a pool. Not sure if thats just a bug or something intentional. Not exactly what I'd call a disaster... but I appreciate your concern.
But you can loot gas cans from them.... you can't loot jars of water from a pond. If you could, it would be equivalent.
In your opinion its equivalent, which is fine. I don't agree. In my opinion resources like gas don't need an empty container. Start filling the world with pools of gas and my opinion would certainly change. It would actually be kind of useful if there were empty gas containers, if you could then use them to fill up with water.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think that removing jars was really a big deal. I just find the reasoning of "making it like other containers" not very compelling.
I 100% agree with you that the method of gathering the various resources in the game are not equivalent. I've never claimed that they are nor that the devs want to make gathering water the same as collecting acid or gas or stew. That has never been in question nor a goal of the devs.
What was a goal was to have all containers of consumables be represented in the game in the same way and in this goal they succeeded. Glass jars now exist in the game in exactly the same manner that every consumable container exists and when you consume water or gas or acid or stew, etc., all of these items operate consistently. That has always been the beginning and end of the comparison for equivalency.If you want to add in the method of how resources are gathered in order to say that there is no equivalency then I agree with you. How can I not since it is absolutely obvious that the devs have never tried, are not trying, and have no plans to try and bring equivalency to resource gathering?
As to whether the game is better or worse for how consumable containers are represented, that will vary from player to player. I wouldn't be opposed to that being changed and I never really cared that there wasn't equivalency so I'm definitely not trying to convince people that the change is good or bad. I'm just stating that glass jars now exist in the game exactly like everything else that contain stuff you use up and that for whatever reason that was a goal of the developers.
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1 hour ago, Kalen said:
While this is true... to me it's a false equivalency. You don't find open pools of gas, stews, or acid to collect. You do find open water. I find it a little immersion breaking to be thirsty early game and walk past a pool of water that I can do nothing with.
You can drink directly from that pool of water. Kind of an important part to leave out when trying to show a false equivalency and claim an immersion breaking condition when you are thirsty. If you're thirsty and concerned about your immersion then go drink from the pool. Disaster abated.
There are gas pumps but you can't directly fill your car from them. You have to use a large pot to cook your stew but you can't eat directly from the pot. So the equivalency isn't about attempting to make the gathering process the same for everything. The equivalency is about having no empty containers as physical objects in the game and in that sense they succeeded in unifying all containers of consumables in the game.
I don't disagree that not being able to fill a jar or a pot with water from a pool and take it home to boil is an artificial limitation. Games have tons of these as well as cases where real life limitations are ignored for the sake of fun.
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17 hours ago, Novamourne said:
You can tell me all the ways I'm wrong but it won't change the fact that it just wasn't fun for me.
I won't tell you that you're wrong but I will give my opinion about why it wasn't fun for you guys:
17 hours ago, Novamourne said:We spent a lot of time trying to figure out who should loot which containers. It didn't make a lot of sense since they were spec'd into looting but I was asking to have priority on boxes I needed books from. It really felt like it ran against the grain there.
This right here was the death knell for your group, imo. There really is no particular need to micromanage who opens a particular container. In my group we go through looting all containers we come across and whoever owns the quest gets to open the final room containers. Period. Everyone has fun opening containers and if you cycle quest ownership everyone gets to open the treasure room boxes.
All magazines go into a common box back at base and people know which magazines they are reading to craft things for the group. There is no trying to figure out who to give a particular magazine to. You read the ones that are yours and dump the rest in the crate back at base and let the others find their magazines to read. It is so simple and then you can be in charge of crafting those items for everyone that you are learning.
From what I have read on the forums and experienced myself from playing with different groups, as soon as the group decideds to min/max containers to the point that people aren't allowed to freely loot the containers they find, there goes the team spirit and the team fun.
A21 definitely requires more effort for healthy group dynamics and tends to out unhealthy group dynamics by the nature of how the magazines work. My family plays together and we have had more fun and felt like more of a team by dividing up the crafting than ever before. We don't regulate who opens whatever containers other than granting the quest owner the right to the loot room and we don't think hard at all about who is supposed to get what magazine. We work it all out on Discord before Day 1 starts who is going to do what this time around and then it's easy.
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On 9/20/2023 at 8:42 AM, ZehMatt said:
Removing glass jars was one of the biggest mistakes done to this game, nothing can change my mind on that. Having to use mods to "fix" a game is quite crazy, most people don't even know how to open the file explorer let alone install mods, what kind of nonsense expectation is that? Also this is not about realism but immersion, glass jars vanishing is just dumb, also having played earlier versions knowing what it was like to have them makes this even worse, glass jars had a perfect place in this game, to collect and cook water, what exactly is wrong with that? The only thing that should have been changed is that cooking murky water no longer turns it to clean water, just keep it murky and everything would be fine with the new way of getting clean water, why can't we put the collected clean water in glass jars? Every god damn update 2 good things are added and 10 good things are being destroyed, when I first discovered this game I had really high hopes for it, those hopes are long gone.
What's funny is that I started playing the District Zero mod for 7 Days to Die which replaces all the zombies with droids. It's great!
Except....as soon as I noticed glass jars in loot and that drinking returned a glass jar, I felt annoyed. I just throw them on the ground as soon as I notice them in my inventory and it sucks that they are taking up a position in loot containers. I'm just the opposite. After playing without and fully accepting the condition I can't stand to go back and play with them. As the stack of glass jars slowly builds it just feels like opening the creative menu and giving myself water....
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25 minutes ago, Riamus said:
You may think this opinion is dramatic but it is still my opinion and I'm not the only one who does not like the change.
It's not your opinion that the change sucks that is dramatic. It was your wording that came across a bit over the top. Of course it's still your opinion even if I think you were laying it on a bit thick and sure there are others besides you that don't like the change. I'd be perfectly happy if they make it take longer for your vehicle to degrade but personally I don't think it degrades that quickly anyway from my own experience. Perhaps you and others who are describing the frequency of which you have to make repairs are understating what you actually mean by "crazy driving".
<shrug>
As far as ragdolling vs red mist I like both. I'd like to see both for variety.
50 minutes ago, Javabean867 said:You know what would fix this real easy??? A mod that turns all found crafting mags into 'crafting notes'. Then with the right perks allows you to turn those crafting notes into the crafting mags that you want to level up. Or the perk level would limit how far up the crafting tree you can go with reading your crafting mags.
I wouldn't mind an additional "crafting notes" item being added to the current system but I wouldn't want what you described as a replacement. Your crafting notes are just way too abstract and generic. I like that a kitchen recipe book specifically teaches cooking recipes and a trade magazine on archery reveals recipes for crafting bows etc. One "crafting notes" to rule all the variety of crafting recipes would be too simplistic for me.
Even our generic skillpoints CAN be traced back to doing specific activities that can explain why you can spend points in a particular skill and get better at it. Sure, it is also abstract but there is at least a bit of a connection there and depending on how you play, the connection can feel quite strong and causal.
So if every once in awhile these crafting notes could drop and you could craft them into a magazine of your choosing that would be fine by me but only as a support to the current system and not as an overhaul of it.
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4 hours ago, Riamus said:
Although true, I personally don't enjoy spending lots of time running around or driving slowly around between places. Especially now with the changes to vehicle damage because unless I want to constantly repair my vehicle, I can't have fun running down zombies and taking crazy paths through the air and over stuff like I used to. The little bit of fun I used to have driving is gone now so it's just wasted time where I don't feel like I'm playing the game. Fast travel will help a little but that will just get you between towns. You'll still have a lot of running or driving to do. For me, I almost am at the point where I want to just give myself a motorcycle with supercharger on day 1 just to avoid it. The game already slowed down a lot in A21. I am not one who really enjoys early game, so the changes just make the game less enjoyable for me and I feel like if I just give myself everything to get a fast start, then the game isn't worth playing. I'm kind of at the edge right now where I want to play and don't want to play. I'm hoping there are not any more changes that push me towards not wanting to play.
I find this a bit over dramatic, sorry. The cost to make 20 or so repair kits is negligible. There is no reason you can't have that "little bit of fun you used to have". It just isn't endlessly free to do now but the actual cost to do it is also super low. In addition the visual and effective reward for running over zombies is way better now than it was which adds to the fun.
I get the disappointment of having to pay for something that used to be free but let's be honest here, you can plow through a crowd of zombies spraying gore and gaining xp and the only cost is a few repair kits to get back up to 100% on your vehicle health.
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6 hours ago, FramFramson said:
I think the biggest warping effect is everyone in single player having to invest somewhat heavily (during the early game) into Int, even if you're not going Int at all. Like, your real build is always a ???/Int hybrid build in singleplayer. That or you're buying a lot of fergettin' elixir.
Though even in Multiplayer, the Int person will still often be a hybrid as well, because not everyone wants to go junk turrets and stun batons.
I never invest much into intellect if I’m not doing an intellect playthrough. I don’t mind getting my vehicles and work stations as rewards or buying them rather than crafting them. There’s definitely no “have to invest” requirement for intellect. There is still plenty to craft in the game if ignore intellect and spend your points elsewhere.0 -
2 hours ago, meganoth said:
You can find the opinion of TFP about the huge perk boni to magazine drop chance here:
Yeah, I think Schwanz's answer is telling. It is important to the devs that players notice the difference even if this means the boost is too high. In the dev's minds, it seems to be better for it to be too high but players know that the boost is operating than for it to be just right (as a safety net) and players often complain and submit false bug reports that the boost isn't operating as far as they can perceive.
I suppose, though, that it is a value in the xmls that can be changed for those that would rather the boost be a bit less?
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3 hours ago, FramFramson said:
The tl;dr is
- Fees will no longer be retroactive
- Unity will allow devs to self-report their installation numbers rather than imposing any sort of monitoring
- Fees will be capped at 4% of a given dev's revenueWe'll see if they stick to this, but it sure looks like they blinked.
Or it is the gradual heating up of the soup water all the frogs are swimming in....
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21 minutes ago, Kalen said:
So I've done a lot of thinking about this.... and you're right. I've said before that I kind of miss when finding (or not finding) Forge Ahead was a right of passage and had a significant impact on your early game play.
That said, I still don't like the magazine system and I think this stems from two points.
1. I don't like how your perk choices so strongly impact what magazines you find. Having it increase the chance for some is fine.... having it effectively decrease your chance of finding others kind of sucks. Particularly for players like me, who play solo.
2. I don't like that magazines are found in certain types of loot, encouraging you to target things like mailboxes and book shelves. I think it would far better if magazines could drop from any kind of loot with equal frequency so that you'd just acquire then through normal game play without even really having to think about it.
1. I agree and I could swear that the boost was not as high as it appears to be now when I played earlier versions. I could almost swear the boost wasn't even working. I've always felt that the boost should be minimal simply to act as a safety net so that you don't not ever find the magazines you need but not so strong that you feel like your chance of getting off perk magazines is less.
2. This doesn't bother me so much. I never feel the need to go shopping to all the mailboxes and newspaper stands as an intentional magazine gathering activity but I do loot them as I come across them in normal game play. Everyone is going to feel the need to focus on finding magazines to exclusion of other gameplay activities to differing amounts. In the past we've had loot scattered randomly across the world in whatever container and had the complaint from many that location and theme-based loot containers is better because with the former it soon becomes apparent that it doesn't matter in the least where you explore. One place is as good as another.
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3 hours ago, OneManStanding said:
As I already said in my initial comment, the magazines are also irrelevant to the perk system - they just let you craft stuff. My buddy has taken the magazines for cooking and farming and gives me everything else even if he's perked into it - so I just craft everything. He might be perked into intellect and engineering but I'm the one that knows how to make the forges and the bikes 'cos he gives me all the magazines. It's simpler in a sense, but I don't feel like we're a team as much as in earlier games where we each perked into stuff the group would need, we all had a role and we all contributed.
Okay, but that is a choice you and your buddy are making and it is a choice that was never possible before. In the past you crafted whatever you perked into because it was tied together so you were stuck being the crafter of whatever you perked into. You can still play that way by reading the magazines that match your perked abilities just as before but in A21 there are other choices as well.
As you stated, you can also choose now to let one person or a couple of people do all of the crafting and give them all the magazines. Just because this is a new possible way to play doesn't mean it is the best or only way or even the most efficient way.
The obvious answer to your and your buddy's problem of feeling less of a team than before is to play the game like you did before, read the magazines that match what you perk into, and share in the crafting more with each other.
54 minutes ago, avalonnn said:I do agree with this. Some slot machine games work, but it would be nice to have skills be more intentional. As the streamer LegendOfTotalWar says, mechanics that give you agency are meaningful for the player, or as Sid Meier said, good games give the player interesting choices.
The thing is that survival games are also about working with what you've got and making do with what you can do until you can do more. Determinism is worse than random generation when it comes to the recipes that you can craft because it makes every playthrough the same and most experienced players can drill down on the deterministic nature of the game to never feel any struggle, never have to make do with inferior gear or low quality building materials. They always stay way ahead of the difficulty curve of the game.
Sometimes having to fight off a 7-day horde with pipe weaponry and a wood and cobblestone base is more fun than always fighting off a 7-day horde with machine guns and cement every single time because the deterministic path to top gear is solved.
If it were the actual skills that were randomly assigned in progression I would be against that too. But it is simply the recipes for gear, food, medicine, armor, transportation and building blocks that are random and will cause a varied result in when you attain the recipe to craft those things. And in most cases you aren't even going without-- you are just going with an inferior version until you can find the recipe for the better version.
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What I take away from Matt115's posts is gratitude that such details don't bother me and I can enjoy the game without such issues causing mayhem with my brain. In those rare moments that I do notice such things I just laugh and enjoy the weirdness.
1 minute ago, zztong said:Oh, my bad. I didn't realize it was set in the past. I thought it was set in the future, honestly. I could have sworn they've talked about it being in the future.
I believe the game is set in 2034 AD of whatever Earth it is in the multiverse.
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On 9/16/2023 at 5:10 AM, Catdaddy said:
I am glad the snake is climbing, though he could look a little better doing it.
To be fair to the snake, nobody looks good climbing ladders in this game...
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Alternative suggestion for a "group permadeath"
in General Discussion
Posted
In regards to this idea, I too would like to know what exactly happens to the incapacitated players? Do they just sit and wait? Are they watching the rest play in some kind of view format? Are they logged out and log in until the first aid kit is applied?
Could be fun but it could also be super boring if it takes a long time for a team mate to come get you especially if it means missing out on most of horde night. Not against it as an option for sure.