3 things I hate in the A18 patch notes

[Ganeden]

No hate, but there is literally no reason to add an option to do something you can already do with some xml edits. Having 3000 options in a game is not useful.

 

 

I disagree with this, I think reasons do indeed exist to have this setting. 99% of players don't know how to edit xml files. Console players don't have xml files to edit. It's a zombie survival game and the ability to adjust zombie spawn rates shouldn't be considered a useless option, an actually useless option in this game would be the ability to adjust the size of the sun. If it truly is so easy I see no reason not to include it. Obviously it could get to a point where there's a silly amount of settings but I don't see this as a silly setting and the total number is not anywhere close to being silly right now for a survival, sandbox, crafting game IMO.

[Ghostlight]

I think the OP should think about what "Don't judge a book by it's cover." Means and apply that to patch notes.

 

You haven't even played it yet dude! Calm your tits.

 

Maybe you should think about what "players will have more breathing room in the world" means. .

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

It is a bit weird to see someone making a noise and then see a bunch of zombies appear. But I assume they will smooth all of that out later to bring some additional realism in. So far I have seen more zombies outside than in. However, that does lead to a slightly awkward situation where it seems a lot of zombros are spawning outside and trying to get in while someone is clearing a POI. So they then have to jump outside and clear those zombies before going back in and continuing the POI.

 

From the discussions leading up to the streaming weekend, it seems that this is because of improvements in the AI and in the breadcrumb system.

 

Zombies are now much more likely to pick up your trail and follow you to a POI, and that's why they've reduced the number.

 

In A17 you'd see maybe four or five zombies wandering around and a couple of them would go for you; but there were another four or five that you never even saw.

 

In the pre-release builds of A18 the AI had been change but not the number, so all those zombies would go for you and you'd have ten or twenty zombies following you to each POI and breaking in while you're trying to deal with what's inside.

 

So that's why they reduced the numbers of outside zombies. Instead of having ten to twenty zombies of which you only actually encounter five and you'll never see the others, there are now five zombies but you will encounter them all.

[falloutcloud]

Maybe adding a % increase in "wild" zombie spawning, plus the increased hit points, increased damage, and increased chance to rage with each difficulty level will satisfy the most hardcore players

[RyanX]

Regarding what people asked to do at home, in which there are 0-2 zombies. I do not know about whining.

 

The complaint was not that it was heavy.

 

The complaint was that it was not interesting that you come to every house, and I’m sure that there will be 10 zombies in it that need to be killed.

 

There is no surprise, or tension. And you wonder why, in every two-bedroom house, 10 zombies live. THAT'S WHAT CLAIMS WERE FOR, BUT NOT BECAUSE THE WHUMPERS.

 

And about the reduction of zombies on the street, I agree. This is very bad, because at 15alpha I remember how, crouching, crawling through the desert, because there were 5 zombies, and as many dogs, and snakes in addition. And now, really, you can only notice 1-2 zombies that walk on the spot

 

This. 10 zombies in every house was immersion breaking. Out in the wild it should be a free for all though. Walking between houses? Sure. If you want to create a story about how they go inside to avoid the sun? Sure. But then they would be vampires...so. and zombies in closets? Just no. At least not as many as we see.

[Khulkhuum]

This. 10 zombies in every house was immersion breaking. Out in the wild it should be a free for all though. Walking between houses? Sure. If you want to create a story about how they go inside to avoid the sun? Sure. But then they would be vampires...so. and zombies in closets? Just no. At least not as many as we see.

 

On the other hand you can't go extreme towards the other end of the spectrum.

 

If you have a small town of 16 buildings (let's say it has a layout of 4x4 of POIs) and every time you go into it encounter a group of 10 Zs on the streets. If you take into consideration the sleepers in POIs, you should at most be able to find around 3 such groups in a town so small EVER. Putting that into more perspective: A medium sized house with 10 zombies is immersion breaking, but a small town with zombies pouring out of every nook and cranny is not?

[Cyanide2029]

So many haters on lowering the spawn rate of zeds and its not even out lol. also looks like most people are basing it off streams or playing with friends, in which case its more of a server thing, having to split zeds between players, i play servers and solo, servers do seem to be pretty quite in the wild, but when i play solo, there are copious zeds in the wild and i get 2 hordes a day.

 

Definitely a server issue IMO

[Ghostlight]

A whole 2 hordes a day? Wow! I assume you are talking about wandering hordes? Firstly 2 per day was normal and always has been and is nowhere near enough anyway, as that is laughable to anyone who knows how to play. Secondly we are not talking about wandering hordes but just random wandering zombies. And I have played this game a lot solo and with up to 4 players and everything in between. Never once noticed zombies were split per player. Out in the wild it's always been the same pathetic 2 or 3 you meet in a day, no matter the player number.

 

And they reduced even that.

 

Been watching streamers btw. There are f**k all zombies out in the world, as I feared. They are all indoors playing hide and seek as usual. Stupid.

[HungryZombie]

i just fancied more z's in the wild regardless if its update time or not, didnt think it would be an easy edit but I read otherwise.

Anyone know where it is to change in the xmls?

 

I don't know how to do it but it is possible for sure. I play with game overhauls like Borderlandz and zombies are constantly spawning. Fun stuff.

[Ghostlight]

If zombie count in the world was simply an XML setting, it would not be worth listing as a change in the patch notes, right?

[Scyris]

Not everything needs to have an easy slider, just learn how to change .xml's and you can change it to be harder.

 

The problem is they are starting to use the modability of the game as an excuse so they do not have to implement things they should with the excuse of: Oh you can just mod it. Its called being lazy and once a dev team starts getting like that it goes downhill fast as i've seen it happen in other games. Since many people are saying something about how poor the spawn rate is, I think putting it as a option in the game itself is the best solution, hell it used to be there in a16 I think.

 

Don't get me wrong I love the work they do on 7dtd, but it pisses me and probally others off when they blow off a feature request with the excuse of: You can just mod it. Its lazy, and looks bad on them imo.

[Scyris]

Regarding what people asked to do at home, in which there are 0-2 zombies. I do not know about whining.

 

The complaint was not that it was heavy.

 

The complaint was that it was not interesting that you come to every house, and I’m sure that there will be 10 zombies in it that need to be killed.

 

There is no surprise, or tension. And you wonder why, in every two-bedroom house, 10 zombies live. THAT'S WHAT CLAIMS WERE FOR, BUT NOT BECAUSE THE WHUMPERS.

 

And about the reduction of zombies on the street, I agree. This is very bad, because at 15alpha I remember how, crouching, crawling through the desert, because there were 5 zombies, and as many dogs, and snakes in addition. And now, really, you can only notice 1-2 zombies that walk on the spot

 

I do agree the zombie counts in some poi's didn't make any sense like a small square house having 10+ zombies always in it, but the outdoor spawns should have been raised not lowered even more than they already were lowered in a17. I like killing zombies, I like killing them while going from point A to B on foot, as it gets rid of some of the boredom of having to run 1+km at times for things. But now? in a18? from what I seen, I might see 1 zombie in that big of a distance now, if I see any at all. This is from watching a few streamers play single player, which is what I usually play, their games were devoid of zombies pretty much even on warrior or higher difficultys.

 

I'd much prefer poi's have a range of sleepers that can spawn, like the small house I mentoned could have 4 to 10 or 12, and you won't know how many actually are there till you actually go in to explore it.

[fragtzack]

The path notes clearly, distinctly and directly say:

 

We also lowered biome spawning some so players could have a little more breathing room when just exploring the world.

 

There is ZERO ambiguity in that statement. TFP intentionally lowered biome spawning to make it easier for the player when "just exploring".

 

Wait to play the game, don't judge based on what you see streamers play and "Try it first" statements are a bunch of crap when the patch notes directly say the biome spawns are intentionally lowered for a reason.

The reasoning behind this change as clearly stated in the patch notes is a directly stated "make the game easier" mentality.

 

 

 

[quyxkh]

Well, perhaps the A18 rage because .0 is too easy will match the A17 rage because .0 was too hard, balance must be maintained.

 

I'm a bit suspicious of the nerfs myself. Anxiously awaiting the alpha drop and running my ignorant mouth in the meantime :-) but ... I like the A17 encumbrance limits. I like the brutality of the needed triage unless you're willing to perk into easy street there. I liked the 17.0 stamina mechanics too, I liked the brutality of the constraints unless you were willing to perk out of them (edit: specifically, they made missing a power-hit swing a dangerously, early on often fatally, costly miscue). I did find a perk set to match my combat style with the current setup and now slaughter zeds for three levels a day on just the starter perks,- and that, I gotta admit, is plenty fun.

 

And it just so happens that the supplies I need to get through the early days while I'm scoping out the territory and formulating my Evil Plans match my encumbrance limits. Anything extra I discard, the really good stuff I bury. My own buried treasure. I really don't have a problem with current constraints. Got that whole pride-and-accomplishment thing going.

[madmole]

Yeah sorry to be negative, I actually like most things in the notes, except for these 3 chunks of pure keech....

 

 

 

 

Shame that the feedback you got was a load of bollox then, since the absolute fastest way to level (outside the very early game) was to mine trees and rocks. I play with a regular group. I am the miner. I always ended up 20+ levels ahead of everyone else in A17.

 

 

 

 

You have got to be joking. How the hell could it get any lower, other than no zombies at all? I saw a lot of people complaining that the world was devoid of wandering zombies, taking all the suspense away. Not so much a Zombie Apocalypse as a Zombie Mild Inconvenience. Seriously, I used to go out mining for entire days and I'd see about 3 to 4 zombies total. And you are lowering this?? I don't remember a single complaint about too many zombies wandering the world. Inside the buildings sure, people complained, but as far as I recall everyone called for MORE zombies out in the world. MUCH MORE. This is unbelievable.

 

 

 

 

You listened to a bunch of whiners who sucked at the game and yet were too proud to play on the easiest difficulty. Well done. Now the game is balanced round these types of player.

 

1, Wrong, it was zombies, but at 17.4 it was mining that was OP. We were speaking to the people who left before it got to 17.4 who felt zombie killing was the only way to level. Now mining has some advanced logic to reduce how much you get later and boost more early without breaking harvest amounts that we like.

 

2, There might be less zombies on day 1, but I added night time zombies with a chance for ferals to spawn at night, and staggered the respawn delay so its more performant and less "dead time", so overall there will be more zombies by far than in any previous version, just not more alive all at once in one area eating cpu for no reason.

[Brian9824]

1, Wrong, it was zombies, but at 17.4 it was mining that was OP. We were speaking to the people who left before it got to 17.4 who felt zombie killing was the only way to level. Now mining has some advanced logic to reduce how much you get later and boost more early without breaking harvest amounts that we like.

 

2, There might be less zombies on day 1, but I added night time zombies with a chance for ferals to spawn at night, and staggered the respawn delay so its more performant and less "dead time", so overall there will be more zombies by far than in any previous version, just not more alive all at once in one area eating cpu for no reason.

 

 

Hmm it's almost as if people should play, document their experience and then post after they've seen it first hand. I mean its not like the spawning can't be tweaked via player feedback if it was adjusted too much in one direction

[merlinfire]

No hate, but there is literally no reason to add an option to do something you can already do with some xml edits. Having 3000 options in a game is not useful.

 

I think it's pretty fair to say a relative minority of players have ever edited the game's xml files directly, or even know how. To say nothing of console players, should they ever get up to date wrt the licensing issues.

 

Makes more sense, imo, to have some more settings in the world creation menu at least. Even if all it was, was a wrapper around creating xml files with the custom settings. Convenience, usability. Saying that's not necessary because they can edit xml files by hand is not really helpful. Most people will never do this, and many may not even know it is possible.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

So that's why they reduced the numbers of outside zombies. Instead of having ten to twenty zombies of which you only actually encounter five and you'll never see the others, there are now five zombies but you will encounter them all.

 

That sounds really great. I hope it works out that way in practice.

[Brian9824]

I think it's pretty fair to say a relative minority of players have ever edited the game's xml files directly, or even know how. To say nothing of console players, should they ever get up to date wrt the licensing issues.

 

Makes more sense, imo, to have some more settings in the world creation menu at least. Even if all it was, was a wrapper around creating xml files with the custom settings. Convenience, usability. Saying that's not necessary because they can edit xml files by hand is not really helpful. Most people will never do this, and many may not even know it is possible.

 

Just wait 1-2 weeks and there will also be modlets that probably adjust this as well that anyone can easily copy and paste in.

[merlinfire]

Just wait 1-2 weeks and there will also be modlets that probably adjust this as well that anyone can easily copy and paste in.

 

I'm sure, but honestly editing the files in any way is something still a minority of players will want. I'm not saying it's wrong to do it that way. I just hope that eventually, maybe somewhere down the line, the world creation menu ends up fleshing out more of the xml-configurable settings in the interface, where normies can get access to it. It can only be a good thing to make it easier for them to customize it their way.

[Brian9824]

I'm sure, but honestly editing the files in any way is something still a minority of players will want. I'm not saying it's wrong to do it that way. I just hope that eventually, maybe somewhere down the line, the world creation menu ends up fleshing out more of the xml-configurable settings in the interface, where normies can get access to it. It can only be a good thing to make it easier for them to customize it their way.

 

With modlets they literally just drop a file in the mods folder and thats it. No editing files needed. Just copy and paste