I hope for something great out of A18

[R0bb0b]

Haven't read the diary so I don't know what's coming. I've been on board for a long time and I hated A17, at which point I felt that 7days had thrown away half of its identity. I hope that comes with some excellent improvements and something new to bring to the table. If not, I probably won't come back, and I know that many others feel the same way. Sorry, maybe I should have added a little beating around the bush.

 

This is my "just sayin"

[Jeraal]

Kinda feel the same. I can't play A17 without heavy modding. Like Games4Kickz recently said "Alpha 17 came along and I stopped having fun playing it".

[zombie4hire]

I have enjoyed every alpha so far, some more some less. I enjoyed 17 quite a bit and am really looking forward to 18

[Roland]

Sorry, maybe I should have added a little beating around the bush.

 

This is my "just sayin"

 

Maybe should have added an "....or else!" to the thread title. lol

[Ti2xGr]

I get the leveling change being different with A17, but so much is so much better now too. The POI's are so much more challenging, diverse, and polished. The zombie AI is so much better than A16 was. The Unity engine upgrade was a great call. Better frame rates, etc. There is so much more this last few builds have that weren't there before. I play almost every day and look forward to every time. It's a work in progress and I see plenty of it, now and on the horizon as well. Check out the A18 videos that MM has posted.

[asmosnuts]

AH yes! irrelevance and the apologists all on one page no less! And best of all, no whining! win win

[Hollowprime]

A17 is graphically great but the leveling pace is very slow . In fact judging by the experience difference to max out levels in each version A17 is about 3 times slower than A16. The level gates make this worse.

And farming has been nerfed dramatically and the hoe is slow.

Generally players will enjoy low graphics on their game over better graphics if the first is better paced and with more content. Proof of this is the pixel game genre where the polygon model resolution is horrible but the content is the reverse.

 

I'll be honest A18 looks even better than A17 in terms of some weapons , but I feel like the devs might not be targeting the issues at hand. Those issues are low amount of zombies especially in servers and the lack of a main quest.

 

Ideally I'd expect 7 days to die to have main quests , friendly npc's with fallout new vegas perk system, a karma system , an order of magnitude more zombies with wall climbing capabilities as seen in world war Z (for very end game or nightmare difficulty) and more friendly realism which progressively becomes fantasy as you turn from a simple human being to an overpowered genetically mutated cybernetically enchanced chad (radiation healing, overgrown muscles for epic melee combat, cybernetic prosthetics for faster running and night vision , etc).

[Birkenhoff]

Maybe should have added an "....or else!" to the thread title. lol

 

Why should he?

[Kalarro]

I get the leveling change being different with A17, but so much is so much better now too. The POI's are so much more challenging, diverse, and polished. The zombie AI is so much better than A16 was. The Unity engine upgrade was a great call. Better frame rates, etc. There is so much more this last few builds have that weren't there before. I play almost every day and look forward to every time. It's a work in progress and I see plenty of it, now and on the horizon as well. Check out the A18 videos that MM has posted.

 

The problem is I disagree with some of your so called improvements. The POIs and the AI is much better.... on paper. But at the end they make the game worse.

Better AI sounds awesome, but at the end what they accomplished is more boring defenses and zombies that have a complex algorithm but dont look smarter, just require some specific mazes/ramps instead of cool bases

POIs like dungeons sounds awesome, but at the end I spend too much time just fighting, in a game with regular fighting mechanics and so awesome other mechanics. 1 out of 5 buildings should be a dungeon, not 5/5

I loved everything about a17 patch notes, but not about the gameplay itself.

 

A18 has awesome things, but few of A17 problems are beeing fixed (changed for those who dont see them as problems)

[Roland]

(changed for those who dont see them as problems)

 

Thank you for that.

[Ti2xGr]

The problem is I disagree with some of your so called improvements. The POIs and the AI is much better.... on paper. But at the end they make the game worse.

Better AI sounds awesome, but at the end what they accomplished is more boring defenses and zombies that have a complex algorithm but dont look smarter, just require some specific mazes/ramps instead of cool bases

POIs like dungeons sounds awesome, but at the end I spend too much time just fighting, in a game with regular fighting mechanics and so awesome other mechanics. 1 out of 5 buildings should be a dungeon, not 5/5

I loved everything about a17 patch notes, but not about the gameplay itself.

 

A18 has awesome things, but few of A17 problems are beeing fixed (changed for those who dont see them as problems)

 

I see this game in it's current state as a work in progress. It isn't complete so I choose to ignore the occasional glitch/hiccup. In A16, the zombies would constantly spin in circles. That is now fixed. There is obvious methods for people to "train the zombies to climb the ramp, etc.". I get it. I just don't choose to use those ramp methods. I know that they'll be creating some randomness within the zombie's pathing ability, so I just wait for those features to be enabled eventually. Even then, people will find new exploits of the new zombies...and I will continue to ignore them and just play the game without trying to "crack" it.

 

I don't know what complaint you have about the POI's as I can bust through a wall with my buddies and go in a gun's a blazin' or stealth through the "route" via. the light clues. Sometimes, we fly in and clear a POI from the top down for fun. It's a heck of a lot more entertaining than the previous POI's were in A16. I don't think they were ever expecting for POI's to be small. I think even the smaller POI's now reflect a more large, living world with variety. I find myself excited and imagining all the new POI's that will be coming out in the next version.

 

I miss the books from A16, but it looks like they're coming back in the next Alpha so we'll just wait for them to come back with even more ways to level/play the game.

 

All that said, each person plays the game differently. Me and my friends like to play through the game for weeks on end. We don't mind the slow leveling as that is part of the fun for us. The struggle is part of the fun. We did recently up the XP percentage on our current play-through as we are expecting A18 to release soon enough and wanted to squeeze through one more 300+ day run before it releases. I'm sure the current iteration frustrates some people who were expecting something different than where it is. We all have ideas of what we would like the game to be. In the end, it's the Fun Pimp's game and their vision of what it is that they dream combined with the limiting factors of the engine and current system hardware.

 

I don't judge the game on just what it is now. I see it's potential and that is what excites me. Hopefully, we can agree on that.

[Scyris]

Kinda feel the same. I can't play A17 without heavy modding. Like Games4Kickz recently said "Alpha 17 came along and I stopped having fun playing it".

 

Same for me, a17 took away alot of the looting aspects and reasons to go looting with how the crafting system etc worked, A18 is fixing this problem in a big way, with items having random stats within a limit based on tier, where the tier below can have slightly better stats than the tier above if you get lucky to find a perfect one. Crafted items always are about in the middle of what its stat range is, its static. Everything has random stats even clothing that adds temp protection vs heat/cold. Then you have the book series. Crafted stuff is no longer the best, as player can only craft up to tier 5, if you want tier 6 you have to loot it. Even if you could craft tier 6, it starts at the middle so, you can potentally find a looted item thats better. I also heard you can get most perks for free from books you can loot, but I also suspect you need to have the base stat to enable that level of perk at the minimum, and you most likely cannot get stats for free.

 

To me a17 lost a lot of the reason to bother exploring and looting. a16 I could play till day 50 or 60 or 70, a17? I am usually bored by day 7, by then I am established and is virtually no reason to even bother playing anymore.

 

I will admit I am not a big fan of seperating weapons into diff stats, as I used to always run with a bow, shotgun, something for range usually ak47, and a melee weapon usually a sledge. Now insted of needing 2 stats to do this I am going to need 3 or 4, not to mention each weapon type is its own skill so there is even more wasted skill points, unless the thing about perks is true. Due to this system looting is going to be even more important, as in vanilla even without perks a high tier modded weapon will always preform pretty well.

 

I view 7dtd more as a looter survival thats very light on the survival elements, I usually have food and water issues fixed before day 1 or 2 at the most is over. I have no idea how anyone has managed to starve or dehydrate to death in this game with how easy it is to get food and water. About all I can say is the player just has to suck at the game to be blunt to manage to die of starvation/dehydration. Even playing on 25% loot there is more than enough. Water is especially easy to deal with, snow biome or find a lake. Used to be able to find a desert and have no water issues, but you now need boiled water to make yucca juice insted of just needing yucca by itself.

 

I play the darkness falls mod myself, adds so much to the game and makes horde night actually a threat.. actually the whole game is much harder. As you have ferals on day 1. The first Day 7 horde in DF is much harder than a day 100+ horde in vanilla, as the zombies come non-stop and you usually have tons of ferals and such in the first horde. It also has new enemies like bombers that specilize in destroying base, behemoths that just wreck things, and even demonic zombies that can throw fireballs that light you on fire. Later on gamestages your horde night will eventually be all or mostly demonic zombies. They also have 1000-1500 hp for most of them. As a bonus the enemy AI has been tweaked, so its much harder to exploit the AI into doing things, its made me rethink base design. Maze's work partially vs the smart zombies, but the dumb ones will just pound on any wall to get to you. Or smash your supports if your trying the old kill corridor as they just smash the nearest block to them they see if they cannot get to you in a straight line, if any of them happen to be dumb ones that go by your supports.

 

Major issue with the games development to me is the fact the devs can't seem to settle on how they want it to be, every alpha from 10 when I started each alpha has pretty much redesigned the game, most dev studios have a pre-planned roadmap they stick to, and have the base systems locked down in alpha. TFP does not seem to have one of these, as each alpha the skill system etc gets nearly completly redone. I am wishing a18 will finally be what they stick with so that the game can finally get more content added, as we need a tier above steel with how easy steel tools is to get. Redoing how the game is played every version has been holding the game back for years now. Don't get me wrong I love this game, but I feel it should have gotten much farther than it is by now after 6+ years.

[Prisma501]

"Didnt read the diary...will quit....and many many others too"

 

Useless.

 

Cheers