Roland

On the other hand, you'll have a lot more fun making your underwater base in A21 with the greater mobility we have in water. I think I'll give an underwater base a go now that I can actually swim down pretty deep and surface again and have it be fun to do.

I guess not only in A17 but just not to the degree of A17. The past three alphas have seen quite a bit of dumbification of zombies which is important but unfortunately results in a less scary hunted feeling. In A17, if I hunkered down on one end of an attic which had a large gap to where the zombies couldn't reach me, they would create a hole to the roof outside and run around and then break through behind me to get me. In A20 (and A21) if I'm standing on the other side of an open door four blocks away from a zombie with no obstructions it will sometimes (too often for my taste) go into destruction mode as though it thinks it can't get to me. In A17 since all zombies knew long pathways to your position they would pile up on top of each other and crest over spots where maybe the stairs were broken out. In A20 only some zombies know the long path and most can't see long paths to the player and of those that can some will forget mid journey. So it just doesn't happen as much. Feral mode helps but it still doesn't bring it to the degree of A17. In A17 I could get up on a roof and zombies would find a way to break through from the inside to get out on the roof with me. If I used godmode to fly over to a neighboring roof, they would run back down through the first house and into the second house and up and break through to get out with me on that roof. It was insane and very unzombie-like (hence all the complaints) but also terrifying and fun in its own way. Of course, this same behavior made them extremely exploitable on horde night where you could step from one position to another and see the entire horde alter their path and you could keep seesawing them all night long just by stepping back and forth between two positions. That first iteration of the new AI had perfect information and that kind of gave them an advantage that made them scary for POI exploration but didn't work well for horde nights.

Just claim that the last boss as a midgame boss and complain on their forums that there is no endgame content...

Yes. Take out a quarter and flip it. Heads: Its done when its done. Tails: Its not done until its done.

Honestly what scared me the most was in A17 when zombies could path straight to you even if you were on the third floor in the hospital and they were outside walking in your direction. Thinking that you had cleared everything behind you only to have a random wandering horde that had spawned outside nearby now coming up unexpectedly behind you in the middle of huge POI was terrifying. Those A17 zombies were no good for horde night but they were awesome for when you were doing quests and exploring POIs.

Right? Secret Projects 2023....lol

True, but the problem isn't limited to unpracticed DM's. It exists in movies, books, video games-- everywhere and not just from poor authors/directors etc. I think that most would agree that JRR Tolkien was a pretty accomplished world builder and yet.... its a stretch to understand how all those orcs and the Balrog could scrape out an existence in the mines of Moria or how armies subsisted in Mordor without farming or game to hunt or water to drink, etc. My point is that it is a common hole in quite a bit of examples of story telling and world building that audiences are expected to just gloss over. I agree that it is blatant in this game.

I get what you mean. I agree that it is blatantly just the level designers setting up a trap for no story-based reason at all. This sort of thing seems to bother some people more than others. I just accept it as part of the POI exploration experience. I really doubt they will stop hiding zombies in surprising areas. Gotcha. Yep, I agree it is not immersive if you are looking for an inworld reason for why zombies are where they are rather than simply a game design reason. It's like D&D. Why are all these orks standing around in rooms in caves and how do they exist if the player isn't there?

I think it wouldn't be very immersive if you always had a guaranteed chance to 100% stealth every room in every POI no matter what the conditions just because you maxxed out your perks. Take that room in your example. You are walking out in the open and everything is well lit and even your stealth meter says that you are perceptible to zombies out to 13 blocks away. If that zombie woke up suddenly-- even if it wasn't because of you but just woke up on its own you would be plainly visible and in it's line of sight with the amount of light and obvious lack of cover or shadows in the room. To stay invisible under those conditions seems un-immersive to me. Most POIs and rooms can be stealthed and if you go at night that number rises even more. I know from past postings that some people feel that stealth perks are not worth taking unless you can stealth 100% of the time without fail. I don't agree with that sentiment, myself. I think that as long as I can stealth the majority of the time it is still worth it and the times I can't break up the gameplay. Finally, in both of those situations you can retreat and hide until the zombies forget and then go back and stealth kill them. So even in those cases you can keep playing the game stealthy.

TFP have not stated that they are done with zombie models. They have only stated that right now they are focused on raider and player models. They have enough zombie models in the game to be "good enough" for testing and development. Once all features are in the game they may focus on filling in gaps and adding variety. They are already to that point with POIs where they are now adding a huge variety of them. There is no statement by them that I'm aware of to indicate that they won't do the same with zombies at some point if they can. What they have stated is that they want the game to look good so in my mind that seems like it should include not having a wandering horde made up of five zombies and their dozen clones all in lockstep with each other. Nobody thinks that looks good. I'm optimistic this is something that will be addressed at some point but I could always be wrong.

Hardcore-Survival Players tend to assume EVERYTHING is trying to F them so no real surprise there...

Only if they MUST do things in the order and the way they've done it in the past. But nobody tells them what they have to do so they can choose to change things up any time they want.

Magazines don’t increase your skill with those items. They only unlock recipes.

Not nerdpoling, nerd polling. If you never got the surveys in the mail then….

Thanks!

Words are only special when they aren't caplocked for 50% of the post.... There should be a command in the F1 console for turning off rain and fog. Can't remember what it is but if you type help in the console you should be able to find it in the list

haha...but joking aside, this is a real thing in A21.

That is true for A21 but then in A22 it will be streamlined and abstracted to a simple “safety meter” and the physical panic switches, protective covers, and protective gear will be removed. Those who felt that the safety gameplay (being a fundamental part of the game) is now trashed will make comments which will fuel the next Hitler video. It’s all good. “Hey Bill, did you hear a screamer?” ”Maybe…” *looks outside of base* ”Nooooo!!!!!!” ”Is it a screamer horde coming to beat down our base!?!?” ”Worse! It’s the OSHA inspector! If they get inside we’ll never get this place done in time for the blood moon!!!”

Once they overhaul weather it is doubtful you will be able to start in the desert biome very easily. The amount of water you will need to sustain yourself together with the early game water scarcity that is coming will surely drive you back to the safety of the forest biome until you've established a replenishing water supply and found appropriate clothing. But that won't be until at least A22 unless one of the devs suddenly whips out a secret weather overhaul announcement and surprises everyone. btw... "a little more difficult than the forest" is probably mostly correct. This game isn't trying to be Valheim where each new biome is basically a whole new world that is almost impossible to survive before progressing through the current biome's game loop completely.

Did you craft the chests or take them out of the cheat menu as well? Are they unlocked for everyone? Try crafting new chests. Try having your friend craft and place new chests and see if both of you can access them. Unless you had a backup file there is no going backward.

Nah...instead we'll be removing empty toilet bowls.

I don't know if they will blow minds or not but there are few things that haven't been mentioned that I know of that are coming in the update. There are some surprises in store to be sure.

It is a new map generator tool. There is a map thread in the mod tools section you can check out but I didn't see an actual thread for downloading and support for the tool--at least not on the first page of the tools section.

A bandit might be even better. It would be surreal to watch a future episode and hear the guys complain that they all died thanks to Thick. They had so many hilarious faux fights and arguments and blame fests involving Thick hahaha