MechanicalLens
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Posts posted by MechanicalLens
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6 hours ago, Gazz said:
We should just rename all difficulties yo something like
- Harder
- Stronger
- Meaner
so all of them sound like an increase =PNah, the variety there is too strong. We'd have to dumb it down--er, I mean streamline it so that the commoners could understand it.
Think:
- In No Way Is This Hard
- Not So Hard
- Getting To Be Hard
- Hard
- Harder Still
- Absolutely Hard
Snowdog, don't you dare take this out of context.
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11 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:
Maybe someday you'll realize there are no absolutes in this game. Period. None.
Other than Rekt not liking you.
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Just now, Roland said:
Maybe I missed it and I know you're tired but could you please give me an example of a playstyle that is only available at low difficulty and is impossible to accomplish at high difficulty?
Not dying.
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58 minutes ago, bachgaman said:
It is impossible to live on canned food and drinks if you do not exploit death or the absence of a penalty for hunger.
Not true. Many people did just this in Alpha 18 due to the irritating food poisoning mechanic that was in the game back then. All you have to do is mark each vending machine you find on the map and visit them daily.
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Very interesting. While you are very flexible and have no real plan going into your next game in terms of weaponry, I am quite the opposite. Towards the end of my soon-to-be retired playthrough I meticulously flesh out my next character, either with the official 7D2D perk calculator (thank you Jackplay) or through various blueprints and work documents. I typically have four main playthroughs per alpha, each one consisting of the heavy use of one of the attributes, one by one, except for Intellect. I've yet to be sold on that one. So if I'm going clubs, it doesn't matter if I loot a superior spear or machete before my first baseball bat- I stick to my plan and see it through.
I'm a miner by heart, through and through. While the Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep, I plunge ever deeper into the world seeking great veins of ore while craving great tunnels out of the stone. These days I find that I invest all of my early game perks into Miner 69er, Mother Lode, and Sex Rex, getting the former two to rank 4/5 and the latter to rank 3/4 before the first blood moon hits, along with a point in Advanced Engineering since I often cannot be bothered to wait around for a forge recipe. (Maybe I'm having dumb luck, but I often find that the traders aren't selling forges nor do I find the schematic until 20-30 hours in my games on average.) Having quality level 5 iron tools and the ability to swing them indefinitely greatly increases my resource harvesting capabilities and the prospect for building a larger structure earlier than most; I go big or I go home, although I often find I bite off more than I can chew, sometimes to the point of burning me out of that particular run.
Other miscellaneous points within the first couple of weeks include a single rank into The Huntsman to acquire extra meat early on as well as additional bones from gore piles, a point into Rule 1: Cardio if I cannot procure or craft a bicycle within the first week, and perhaps a single point each into the perks of whatever weapons I happened to select from. I rarely visit traders nowadays, so I never invest into the bartering and adventuring skills anymore, although we'll see if A20 changes this.
Before crafting bullets I am inclined to invest the required number of perk points to bring Advanced Engineering to the third rank. Totally unnecessary especially if I'm rolling around with shotguns, but I suppose to bleeds directly into my min-max strategy.
Other perks I eventually invest into are Pain Tolerance, a single point into Living Off The Land, Heavy Armor, the final points into my weapon perks, a point or two into Salvage Operations, and honestly that would about do it. By this point I'm around level 50 and the level grind truly begins. But perhaps that is because I play on 75% EXP; I level up far too quickly for my own good. On 60 minute days and 100% EXP gain I could easily level three times a day until the mid-30's.
Also I must mention I never invest into the Agility tree unless I'm going for a stealth run.
When A20 hits I'm considering changing up the name of the game a little and breaking some old nasty habits. Restarting innumerable times before finally sticking to a playthrough is one of them, building a non-modular base that takes me weeks to finish before I can finally begin defending from it is a close second. Perhaps instead of treating them like a band-aid, I might only invest into the mining/stamina perks once I require them versus weeks ahead of time.
For right now I've rolled back to Alpha 18.4 stable branch where I am finishing off my current playthrough; I'm honestly going to be retiring it much sooner than expected. I might start another run, or just wait until the next alpha. Skyrim will be more than enough to keep my busy.
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15 minutes ago, Roland said:
I've only maxed out a weapon perk once or twice back when the new perk system was new and I was testing a couple of the builds. I vastly prefer to spread points around and be a bit above average in many things rather than specialize in just one thing. I tend to buy perks based on my immediate needs and wants. I just started a new playthrough with a brother who has never played before and decided to go full knives so I'm pouring everything into that and trying my best to not get distracted by what looks shiny in any given moment.
It's very good that you are branching out. I'm considering going bladed myself once A20 eventually hits the public market. Until then I've yet to fall out of old habits. If you wouldn't mind spending another moment of your time at some point, I am curious which perks you typically take and why (i.e. perks that you consider the "diamonds in the rough"). Are there any that you typically purchase as soon as possible? If you're interested I could share with you my traditions in response. I think it would be fascinating for us to learn from one another in this regard. Of course if anyone else wants to chime in, feel free to say what's on your mind.
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Just speaking out of curiosity @Roland but do you ever max out the perk abilities of a weapon or do you stop at 7/10 of the attribute rank?
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3 minutes ago, Urban Blackbear said:
None of those are decent enough alternatives to just hitting them again. One requires you to wiggle until you find the right spot to pick it back up which is easier said than done and the other requires you to carry around a bunch of spears. Do they stack if they're modded? Never tried because rifle ammo stacks.
Spears never stack.
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2 hours ago, ClanPsi said:
I agree with this point completely. Melee in general is absolutely awful, with the sole exception being the sledge which is just barely decent once you max out every single relevant melee perk.
I also believe that the best gear in the game should only be available through crafting, NOT looting. Level 6 gear should be a max-rank ability for each perk, and there should be super rare looted materials (rarer than L6 gear drops that are in the game presently) required to craft each piece.
The game needs to be better tiered as well. I shouldn't be finding L6 AKs on the second day and L6 auto shotguns in week 2, that's just stupid.
1. In your opinion melee is generally awful.
2. I'm not judging here, but I cannot for the life of me understand why some people find it's more rewarding to grab a handful of common materials out of their storage and craft the best gear in the game rather than going outside and looting.
3. Have you played Alpha 19? If so, you'd know that this statement couldn't be further from the truth. Unless you're talking about trader quest rewards; those will be properly balanced in A20.
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10 minutes ago, bachgaman said:
Man, I understand that at the Scavenger difficulty level, you can successfully kill zombies with a torch, you don’t need to tell me that you are investing skill points in a spear playing at a high difficulty level and you don’t suffer from it. You only do this if you want perversions
Im also playing with a club / baseball bat / steel club (in the last game I found steel club at a merchant in the first week) early days. So what? Yes, I killed zombies with 2.5 power attacks to the head, spending all the stamina on Insane difficulty. It was very cool, but as soon as I got a double-barreled shotgun and after 1-2 days more a pumpshotgun I forgot about this club forever. And imagine, I didn’t spend 5-10 levels on leveling up possession of this passable weapon
You did not understand at all. I did not say that clubs are useless. I said that the club perk is useless. I said that perks for bows, spears and brass knuckles are even more useless. Perks for crafting armor are generally discarded skill points.
Ponder
I typically play on either Warrior or Survivalist difficulty with running zombies. Maybe it's because I have 4,000 hours in this game, but I can confidently say that I am better at melee than with shooting guns. 😜
Now if you're talking about Nightmare/Insane, then yes, I could agree with you that sledgehammers are really the only way to go.
Melee provides one advantage over all ranged weapons: they don't cost any ammo to use. I shared a screenshot of my horde night loadout and my base one time on the subreddit and somebody asked, "How do you have so much ammo? Did you spawn it in?" Nope; I simply use melee 99% of the time with my zombie encounters. (For specific details, I had 3 stacks of 7.62 ammo, 2 stacks of 9mm, and one stack of shotgun shells by night 7.)
Alright then. I'd suppose that is a more reasonable argument. Nevertheless by investing in the skill trees that melee weapons belong under you are outright increasing raw damage, so they aren't useless. But I would question anybody going for 10/10 of an attribute, melee or otherwise. (<------ As in, scratch my head at said individual's choices.)
Anyway, I'm done here for tonight. Apologies for the clutter @Roland
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4 minutes ago, bachgaman said:
Yes, they are useless, you will use club for a maximum of the first week and only against a small number of opponents, if by the end of the first week you do not have at least a blunderbuss and a pistol with a sufficiently large number of cartridges, then you were doing something wrong
Now tell me where you will spend your skill points in the first week? Are you going to improve clubs knowing that you will receive a double-barreled shotgun in a few hours? Perhaps you will spend 1 point, then you will take more useful skills. And when you take on vital skills you will already have such an arsenal that you will not pick up either a club, a spear or a brass knuckle. This is what we are talking about.
As someone who consistently uses every melee option in the game (minus stun batons, yuck), I can assure you beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are simply full of crap. To put it less bluntly, your claim that melee weapons are "useless" is completely unfounded outside of your own experience. I could understand your point of view if you were a new player and were just getting used to the game's mechanics and the feel of melee weapons, but unless I'm incorrect about this, you're not a new player.
If you don't like using melee, that's cool. I'm all for supporting players for playing the game how they want to play. But one tip I would give to anyone is to not judge the big picture based off of one's narrow window of experience.
Note: Regarding my blunt answer, it's nothing against you personally. I've just seen this argument crop up often enough that it's doing my head in a little.
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4 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:
Do you divide all the players into hardcore and casual?The third is not given?
And after that, you want criticism?Seriously?It would probably be best if you leave this situation to the mods to deal with, otherwise you'll continue to go around this merry-go-round of opposing thought from here to Sunday.
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I bestow upon you all my submission for the "cookie contest". Transparent backgrounds for cookie images simply do not exist... -_-
If it's needed, here's a smaller version.
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48 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:
Sounds like a cookie-cutter speech to me...
Jokes aside, I sent a PM with a similar request to Roland some time ago, but my reason was that flowers feel too "feminine" as a reaction, if you know what I mean... I'd rather have (e.g.) a fist/hand on heart icon or something.
But as Adam said... not life and death lol
Rather than flowers, how about Arlene's skull crushed against the pavement? 😜
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3 hours ago, pregnable said:
Yeee, or the college jacket will be part of one of the sets with the baseball cap and what not.
Hopefully they will give us more information about some of the new sets. It is one of the things I am most interested in.
Pretty sure TFP said at some point that the hat mods will be removed for various reasons including eliminating moments of confusion that take place in PVP. ("Is that player wearing a steel helmet or a cowboy hat?")
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3 minutes ago, Odetta said:
Imo scrapping should be instant for anything that incurs a resource penalty 🤷♂️
Nah thanks. What if you accidentally scrap that level 5 iron pickaxe you just found instead of equipping it? What if you scrap those radiators by accident? Or those first aid bandages? It would be a frustrating nightmare that would inevitably come to bite you from behind sometime or another. Perhaps the standard should be 5 seconds.
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7 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:
Trader hue (IDK HOW TO SPELL HIS NAME!)
Hyoo
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10 hours ago, meganoth said:
Isn't smelting on the way out already? You are beating a horse that will be dead in A20
So in other words I'm beating a zombie horse now.
Seems rather fitting.
I don't believe it's 100% confirmed that smelting will be gone in A20. It might be, it might not be.
3 hours ago, Roland said:
I think you should scrap the brass before smelting it if you are tempted to sit and watch a timer for five minutes. Either put ten candlesticks in and go do something else and come back or scrap everything and take the penalty so you don’t have to babysit.
I scrap everything for inventory space and so I can load it all in to the forge at once and I have plenty of brass. There is way more brass and ammo to be found in A19 than ever before.
That's a plausible solution, but I'm a min maxer. I'm not asking for much; just for brass radiator stacks to be increased to a healthier amount. 🤷♂️ It honestly wouldn't take much and wouldn't affect much in terms of balance as far as I'm concerned.
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2 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:
Sorry, what does GDR stand for?
In Italy GDR means "gioco di ruolo", which would be an RPG or role play game in English
It could also mean "global depository receipt"
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1 minute ago, fallenbox said:
Cause i actually liked the game back then and the overall idea behind it, genius.
Then go back to previous alphas if that makes you happy. Have fun living in the past.
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10 minutes ago, Matt said:
Actually this does not work. Just tested it and game stage does not change and the slider only lets you move it to day 16. That's what you get for posting at work and before testing. Haha
There is a command for setting the day. However since you have not progressed through all the days before it the Days Alive gamestage bonus will not be taken into account.
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1 minute ago, BFT2020 said:
When you posted this, I had a guilty laugh 😆. Not that I do spreadsheet leveling-up, just that in several long play games, I have used Excel spreadsheets to track things, like when I use the Sim Settlements mod and use a spreadsheet to track my Empire. 🤔
There is a 7D2D skill calculator if you're interested. 😛
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8 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:
Did(I subscribed to his channel). He also maxed out at the very beginning by leveling himself up through the console commands. That is an artificial advancement which is different than playing so long you earned enough XP to max out everything.
The vast majority of perks don't increase your survivability with zombie encounters. If you max out Pain Tolerance, Healing Factor, Heavy/Light Armor, Sex Rex, and your weapon(s) of choice, you can very accurately replicate the level of power Glock was able to achieve. Other than light armor, all of those perks exist in only two attributes so while it is expensive, it's certainly doable.
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On 4/1/2021 at 4:21 AM, Liesel Weppen said:
Imho the current lootstages are to strict, however i think it is still better than complete randomnes.
Best way imho is a risk-vs-reward system. In theory you should be able to find a M60 on day one. If you are brave enough to go into a shotgun messiah factory on day one. And ofc the difficulty in the factory has to be high on day one also.
But that requires lootdrops to be bound to POIs instead of just what type of lootcrate. You should not be able to find a M60 from a shotgun messiah crate in a lonely garage where not even a single zombie spawns. But you should be able to find a M60 in the same kind of shotgun messiah crate if you made your way through the factory.
The second thing is, that requires also difficulty to be bound to POIs instead of just the players gamestage. There should spawn cops and radiateds in a factory, even on day one, when the player is still just gamestage 1.
And if i understood it correctly, this is about to come true with A20.
In my opinion there should also still be a few oh %#$@ moments that pop up every once in a while, but nothing too extreme. You're not going to find a level 6 M60 on day 1, no sirree. But rather perhaps small but ultimately insignificant jumps such as rarely finding a level 1 iron pickaxe on day 1. Now you can smash open doors faster, but it drains more stamina. Sure it might take less hits to harvest stone, but the stamina problem comes into play once again. Unless you loot a Pass-N-Gas and find a stack of repair kits on day 1, you probably won't be able to afford repairing that pick anyway. Another example is a rare chance of finding a level 1 chainsaw on day 1. Potential lack of repair kits comes into question again, as does a high need for fuel. One final example would be that very rare piece of quality level 1 iron or leather armor on the first day. Sure that piece of armor would grant you greater protection than the lower tier scrap iron/padded armors (but certainly not the higher quality level versions of those items) but at the cost of stamina regen reduction and mobility. (I'm making the final example since the outfit system has been delayed until A21 at least.)
As an extension to what I've said above, hopefully gamestaged POI's make it into A20.
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A20 Developer Diary Discussions
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