Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Odetta]

No because I turn off their stupid updates and play an older version, and let the mod community give me the updates I WANT. I'm perfectly happy with that. They gave us a framework that allows a lot of great mods, so well done there. What they have done post DLC, I'm not happy about, but as I said, I turn off updates and ignore it. The legendary version before they did the paid for mod crap is good to go, I don't need any paid for mods they are trash rehashes of better free mods.

 

Again, I'm not hating on them for doing stupid crap now, but thankful for what they did in the past that modders can expand on. It works fine. I just hope they don't pull a fallout 76 to Elder Scrolls 6 but I guess we won't know for 2-3 more years will we? That is what makes me the most angry, is that they are waiting 10 years between sequels now. And they had it nailed down to a science of 3 year releases for a while. But they keep adding new franchises so the one I want the most is on the back burner. Fallout 76 was a bomb, Starfield might be fun, but again its blocking them from ES6, so its kind of BS. They didn't even work on Fallout 76 other studios did, so I have to wonder what have they been killing 4 years on now that still isn't done?

 

You just need to arm wrestle Todd Howard, show him who's boss.

[Guppycur]

If a user changes his review to negative because of a change, that's valid.

 

The game "as it is now" is what should be reflected in reviews. If the "now" changes, so should the review. For good or ill. (Shrug)

 

I would just hope the reviews accurately represent the state of the game and not just anger.

[AtomicUs5000]

All you can really do is accept any losses. Maybe they did it out of anger, maybe it truly is what they feel. We'll never know.

[DUST2DEATH]

They didn't even work on Fallout 76 other studios did, so I have to wonder what have they been killing 4 years on now that still isn't done?

 

Probably trying to bring Creation Engine into 2020

 

[madmole]

You just need to arm wrestle Todd Howard, show him who's boss.

 

I honestly don't think he pulls all the strings, Zenimax writes the checks.

[maleitch]

What the hell am I reading? Not trying to be a madmole fluffer but the childish reaction to him stating facts is more insight into a games development than I have ever seen and I downloaded wads from BBS' for Doom.

 

Go back and listen to yourselves. So the development is slow. I get it, but the core game is mostly there. The goofy gripes about gameplay mechanics don't seem to be that rage inducing. If they have shown us anything the FunPimps will try something, and if it does not work out exactly at least they are open to changing. Not all the time, but more than any other developers I have seen. Are these mechanics really that horrible that you are willing to quit the game?

 

I get there is a mostly single player interest in this game, but after living forever I lost interest in that aspect. I truly don't understand how some of you repeatedly play the single player game more than once. HOWEVER, you don't see me having a tantrum asking TFP to drop their roadmap and focus on the things I feel are important.

 

There are some developers that truly deserve a tongue lashing, like BI, but not these guys.

[AtomicUs5000]

I truly don't understand how some of you repeatedly play the single player game more than once.

 

Don't make fun of me.

Seriously though... what the heck does that have to do with what you are saying? You have good things to say here... why is that a thing?

Does not replaying single player make you less prone to having tantrums? That's a really strange association you've made there.

[danielspoa]

wait.. I literally went searching for the A17.3 thread

 

is that a sign? this week? pretty please

[THARN]

What the hell am I reading? Not trying to be a madmole fluffer but the childish reaction to him stating facts is more insight into a games development than I have ever seen and I downloaded wads from BBS' for Doom.

 

Go back and listen to yourselves. So the development is slow. I get it, but the core game is mostly there. The goofy gripes about gameplay mechanics don't seem to be that rage inducing. If they have shown us anything the FunPimps will try something, and if it does not work out exactly at least they are open to changing. Not all the time, but more than any other developers I have seen. Are these mechanics really that horrible that you are willing to quit the game?

 

I get there is a mostly single player interest in this game, but after living forever I lost interest in that aspect. I truly don't understand how some of you repeatedly play the single player game more than once. HOWEVER, you don't see me having a tantrum asking TFP to drop their roadmap and focus on the things I feel are important.

 

There are some developers that truly deserve a tongue lashing, like BI, but not these guys.

 

I Second that...Wholeheartedly.

been coming here for awhile for news and signed up just now to post my disdain for those who change a review from positive to negative--(not recommend) only because the developers added or removed some things they don't agree with.

And after hundreds of hours of enjoyment. Your child-like tantrums are a joke. You can say you are not enjoying the changes at the moment but if you were emotionally or intellectually honest you would not change it to a thumbs down but perhaps- edit your review and give a warning to someone who might like to try it. You Have NO RIGHT to try and force a developer into making a game the way you want it to be! period. End of story. suggestions have always been welcomed here from what I've seen, be glad you get that kind of input.

[HungryZombie]

I get there is a mostly single player interest in this game, but after living forever I lost interest in that aspect. I truly don't understand how some of you repeatedly play the single player game more than once.

 

Mods. The overhaul mods make it practically a different game.

[TargetPractice]

MM and Pimps,

 

Looking forward to the changes and features you guys are talking about. For me personally, perks (and their opposite - flaws) don't quite scratch my zombie N/B/C apocalypse itch the way other skill advancement mechanics do that shall not be named (but the initials are Larry Bites Doug). But that's OK! I've had fun with the perks and other changes in 17 (up through 17.2), I'm looking forward to 17.3 and 18. So long as I can advance, gain abilities, and immerse myself in semi-realistic zombie slaughtering fun, I'll enjoy it. Gotta say that knocking Z's off the roof of a building on horde night is a blast. That crunch when they hit the bottom never gets old! And neither does the dancing flames of a follow-up molotov! (Love that item, by the way.)

 

Question, and I apologize if it's already been covered in the 300+ pages of this thread: Any hints on new types of zombies, or zombie abilities in the near future? I recall mention of a breaker. But I was wondering if you guys are going to build in "mods for Z's" like there are mods for tools and weapons. Several game mods have helped scratch that variation in zombies itch. But I'm hoping for some extras in the base game. I've played this game a lot since A8, and end of last year/first half of this year I've taken a series of long breaks to stave off burnout. I'm starting to jones for my next fix of undead mayhem.

 

FWIW, started with A8, Steam says I've got 6K+ hours in, and I still come back to play with each new release. So, yeah, I'm a fan of the game. Re-lurking before the ravening hordes start munching on my meaty bits.

[SittingDuck]

Pretty much this. I've spent this entire build focusing on making the perk system a better class system so you don't NEED int, don't need any ONE attribute. Less jack of all trades. I've also been here every day listening to everyone and taking the dislikes into consideration on all the new designs. No incentive to loot? Fine, here's over 100 new cool books you can collect with collector perk unlocks if you read the entire set. Forced to buy int? Nope, find schematics to learn recipes. Don't like schematic ingredients? Fine they are gone, you learn the schematic forever now like old builds.

 

The list goes on and on. But reason to loot is in every design now. Gun parts are making a small return in a new exciting way. I mean I don't care if you like me, but lets stop acting like I don't care about you old players, the entire design has you in mind.

 

you Mr Mole care:

1. for the game

2. for all players

 

yeah we all miss the crafting grid and the sticks...(not realy) but I realy like how 7 days is progressing and changing. Of course with new stuff it gets a little bit rough but as an old player i trust in the smooth out process... hey remember the minibike nemesis? how long did they do bad things? and now we can even fly ^^

[Odetta]

Just waiting on that patch

 

[maleitch]

Don't make fun of me.

Seriously though... what the heck does that have to do with what you are saying? You have good things to say here... why is that a thing?

Does not replaying single player make you less prone to having tantrums? That's a really strange association you've made there.

 

no no...sorry. My explanation was piss poor and not a dig at single player game "players". Apologize if any took it that way. It is just not my interest in the game.

 

What I was trying to say is that the gripes about certain game mechanics are not things I personally care about. My selfish priorities are on multiplayer improvements but I know I am in the minority. Realizing that, I am self aware enough to not jump on TFPs case because I know they have always stated they have a certain vision for the game and single player is the focus. I would certainly never say, MadMole needs to make these multiplayer changes this certain way because...well because that is what I want and I bought the game on day one.

 

I may get what I want one day, I may get only part of it, or MadMole may say I just can't spend any more resources on that and move on. All of it I understand.

 

Is the XP, zombie farming issue with the game a legitimate issue? I have no doubt it is for a certain segment of the player base, but those players shouldn't push the developers on it so much because they don't necessarily make up the majority of players in the game either.

 

Again, nothing was meant as a slight. Certain groups of players all have issues with the game they feel should be fixed first. TFP get to decide the roadmap though, and you shouldn't pop off at them if your particular issue is not on the roadmap.

[khzmusik]

No they all ran to steam and wrote negative reviews. They are trying to make us hostage to old legacy designs. Talk about ungrateful, they got 5000 hours of fun out of 24 dollars or less then have the gall to give us a bad review?

 

I just checked. If you believe the Steam records, lots of the negative reviewers have had less than 1000 hours (often less than 200). Of course they all claim to have been playing since A10 or something, so who knows.

 

But keep in mind that many of us who have over 1K hours in-game, either are just not vocal enough to write reviews, or wrote positive reviews long before the last alpha dropped.

 

My point: don't believe that the negative reviews represent the 5K crowd.

[AtomicUs5000]

...

Oh geez. No, I'm sorry. I was just messing with you. I was trying to be so ridiculous about it that it would be obvious, but I guess I failed.

[Dimpy]

@Madmole are there going to "generic" gun parts along with the specific ones? Maybe it's a little too much like the sharp sticks>sticks>planks>logs thing, but I was thinking, maybe a player could scrap some shotgun parts into generic gun parts and use those to help build a faulty pistol. Maybe there's a player-crafted gun like the blunderbuss that only uses generic gun parts.

[Weazelsun]

.

One more case in point. I started TRT about 5 years ago and went bald. I new about Finisteride, a drug that blocks DHT but I read about it and the forums said it killed your libido forever and that made me scared as hell. I tried saw palmetto and even topical rogain, but that was all BS. But fear kept me from trying finisteride.

 

As I looked in the mirror and was going to shave my head I decided to talk to someone about it. They said "This drug is used by millions of people. Most of them grew their hair back and were happy and moved on with their life. A very small percentage used it and had libido problems and freaked out, went on the internet talking about it, and created all this bad reputation for the drug.

 

The truth is millions of people got their hair back. So I took the gamble, 3 months into it now and my 5" bald spot in the back is now the size of an egg with hair covering most of it, libido is great and my prostrate must have shrunk too because I sleep all night without peeing now. I also hot flash less, from having normal hormone levels. So this drug was the best thing to happen to me in years. Had I listened to the disgrunted loudmouths instead of relying on facts, I'd have been totally bald by now and have more health issues.

 

Hm... interesting. I have a bald spot as well, but I feel like just shaving and going bald already. I honestly wouldn't mind going bald even though I'm in my 20's. Tired of cutting my own hair and going to the barber at times. Might do some research on that drug though.

 

On-topic, @madmole, what is your vision for the game? Personally, for me I like the game because it has crafting and allows me to be creative and still deal with zombies. At the same time though, like if the game ends going into the more hardcore-survival part... I might stop playing at that point. I've always seen this game as a survival-lite game, meant for "casual" folks like me. But, really it's more that the mechanics of the game are simple and easy to learn. Is the game still matching your vision or are there still more on-going refinements?

[Aldranon]

I just checked. If you believe the Steam records, lots of the negative reviewers have had less than 1000 hours (often less than 200). Of course they all claim to have been playing since A10 or something, so who knows.

 

But keep in mind that many of us who have over 1K hours in-game, either are just not vocal enough to write reviews, or wrote positive reviews long before the last alpha dropped.

 

My point: don't believe that the negative reviews represent the 5K crowd.

 

Yeah, I looked through the first few pages of reviews and one guy with 800 hours and one guy with 5K wrote negative reviews. Most high-hour players have positive reviews.

 

What is disconcerting is MM said that A17 sold 2-3 times as much as the other releases. If that is correct and not some angry outburst (my belief) then the small numbers (4000-8000) of active players is alarming as that means players are quiting 2-3 times faster.

 

 

 

I would say most high-hour players know that mods work and work great to tailor make your experience.

[DaVegaNL]

No you didn't read a thing I wrote, Recent reviews are a SEA of blue and about the ONLY negatives are from 300+ hour players talking about the past. Like 90% or more of new customers are giving it a great review. When you say "The Reviews" you are being completely subjected to what you are looking to see. If you click into it, you will see the reviews are fantastic in the context of A16. Some sharp stick people are still disgruntled. Don't buy an alpha game if you are going to get married to placeholder systems.

 

Sales are the best metric. Good games sell well, bad ones don't. I don't care what the squeaky wheels say and neither should anyone. If a game sells millions of copies, there is something good there, period. Look at all the negative Ark reviews. That game is brown we're still blue at least (the best possible color of steam games). Ark is a good game but everyone ♥♥♥♥s on them. I had a friend with 2k hours who wrote a crappy review because they changed the fliers. A simple mod fixed it but he left his stain on their hard work that changed his life and gave him 2k hours of fun. That is just wrong, but whatever, people are entitled fickle ♥♥♥♥s these days who judge on one recent flaw vs 5000 good times they had.

 

My point is Ark is a good game, but people get mad at them and write a negative review. I don't agree with that. Like I stay at a 5 star hotel and the view is great, the service is fantastic. They confused me for my brother and charged me for his room, but I didn't ♥♥♥♥ on them, they fixed it and its fine, great place to stay.

 

A friend of mine doesn't like Rust. He has 4000 hours in it lol. They ruined it with the helicopters. Some people don't adapt to change.

 

I'll admit I'm very opposed to negativity. It pisses me off and I delete any negative people in my life. I thrive to prove them wrong though, so I use it as fuel for motivation. So I might react strongly when it comes to criticism, but at the end of the day we always do what we think is best for the game.

 

Dev cycles start when the other alpha is finished. I don't think you can complain about A18 when your getting patches for 17. Thats just me though, I don't like to complain, I like to fix things, that actually gets results.

 

Thanks for the reply, mate. Of course, one can interpret whatever one wants from the reviews, but all I'm seeing is that only 56% of the reviews over the past 30 days is positive. I don't care whether they come from someone who played 5 hours or 5000 hours. And that is half a year after A17e was released.

I also see that over the past 30 days the game has an average player-number of 7286. Which is pretty much the same as pre-A17 at this time during the development cycle. So where are all these new people that bought the game? They must not be playing. Which should be worrying, I think. Or they mostly replaced old-time players. Which should also be worrying, I think. Retention rate.

 

The whole Alpha-process is a double-edged sword. If you can't accept that things change, you shouldn't invest into Alpha-products. However, that also means that you have to accept that the appraisal of the product can change as well (people changing their reviews). Part of accepting change is accepting that opinions can change as well.

[Menace312]

Arrgh, Roland did a thread cleanup again.

It's confusing, I say! 😤

[beHypE]

Thanks for the reply, mate. Of course, one can interpret whatever one wants from the reviews, but all I'm seeing is that only 56% of the reviews over the past 30 days is positive. I don't care whether they come from someone who played 5 hours or 5000 hours. And that is half a year after A17e was released.

I also see that over the past 30 days the game has an average player-number of 7286. Which is pretty much the same as pre-A17 at this time during the development cycle. So where are all these new people that bought the game? They must not be playing. Which should be worrying, I think. Or they mostly replaced old-time players. Which should also be worrying, I think. Retention rate.

 

The whole Alpha-process is a double-edged sword. If you can't accept that things change, you shouldn't invest into Alpha-products. However, that also means that you have to accept that the appraisal of the product can change as well (people changing their reviews). Part of accepting change is accepting that opinions can change as well.

 

While I agree with some points that you make, I just don't understand what exactly you expect by keeping on pounding on madmole these days. I mean I was among you guys writing essays about how something got lost in the process of making A17, namely the strive to loot, the "Intelligence rules all knowledge" mechanism that just doesn't work, the whole new gun repair/customise/mod system that just felt lackluster, the state of RWG etc etc.

 

But at some point in time I think we got our points across and now there's nothing else to do than either take a break from the game, or show some faith and get hyped up for what's coming our way in 17.3 and 18. He already acknowledged A17 was too much at once and that they actually see the problems we have with it, so there's not much that can be gained by talking about active players, number of sales, and all these shady areas where our "rights" as players start crossing the line of "none of our business". Right now it seems you just try to nitpick everything Roland/madmole say, by taking little sentences out of context in order to start yet another argument. Can we just let it be for a minute and try making this a peaceful and pleasant place again ?

[DaVegaNL]

While I agree with some points that you make, I just don't understand what exactly you expect by keeping on pounding on madmole these days. I mean I was among you guys writing essays about how something got lost in the process of making A17, namely the strive to loot, the "Intelligence rules all knowledge" mechanism that just doesn't work, the whole new gun repair/customise/mod system that just felt lackluster, the state of RWG etc etc.

 

But at some point in time I think we got our points across and now there's nothing else to do than either take a break from the game, or show some faith and get hyped up for what's coming our way in 17.3 and 18. Right now it seems you just try to nitpick everything Roland/madmole say, by taking little sentences out of context in order to start yet another argument. Can we just let it be for a minute and try making this a peaceful and pleasant place again ?

 

I'm sorry if it came across as a personal assault on him, but his remark that most negative reviews are coming from mostly 300+ hour guys who don't like change rubbed me the wrong way. That seems like a unfounded generalization, but if you think I'm taking it out of context, I can't or don't want to change your opinion.

[Cyber Shadow]

I haven't been following the conversation but I just see stuff about reviews so I have my thoughts on the game as it is now.

 

I don't like how there's literally zombies EVERYWHERE now. I like wandering hordes , and maybe the spare occasional zombie . But it's just frustrating and annoying when you're out in the middle of the woods / desert looking for a neat spot to build but there's just wandering zombies everywhere.

 

Of course the game needs to be optimized again since going A17. I think you already responded on my comment about that.

 

The only thing I see holding this game back is well , unfortunately it's a voxel game so the ability to mine underground and destroy houses piece by piece severely limits what else could have been done. If only there was a way to make melee combat more engaging. But maybe Killing Floor 2 has me spoiled with their melee system.

 

I'm currently not playing the game , I wanted to play A17 but now I'm just hoping for an optimization patch.

 

I don't think the game is dead as some would say. I mean it's still in Steam's top 100 games with active players so that's pretty good imo. A dead game is something like Evolve (before they actually shutdown servers) and Contagion (not the VR one).

 

Edit : Oh and yea.. why zombies so smart now? I Liked the idea of them not being so easy to cheese but , now they rip a very minimal path climbing up a house to get to me on the roof , instead of doing what zombies should do and just try to destroy the whole house.

[The Gaffer]

Yes, and maybe the future will suck you back in, maybe not. Some times when its done its done. We are attempting to bring back some of the hooks the past builds had. LBG is purely pshycological.

 

What IF, you earned more XP at the things you perked into? So then doing stuff you perk into gives you more reward, so you get xp for doing what you like to do , (obviously, you perked into it). This might reflect that feeling LBD had.

 

THe other way to go might be to raise the attribute by using its governed perks, but you buy the attribute if you are too impatient to wait for it like a16.

 

I like the sound of both options given and can already feel the hook in my mouth pulling me back in

 

After reading some replies from you about alpha 17 i understand that it was a massive change and now you are filling in those gaps one by one, the future feels good for the game.

 

I am guessing not much chage is going to happen for 17.3 so i will wait and see what 18 brings