My big list of 13 random negatives with A18 (which is otherwise great)

[Ghostlight]

5: No. 90% of my time with this game is with the same group. Latency has not been an issue. Combat is different.

 

7: The only thing I didn't know was that Knives were better used on Gore blocks

 

6 and 12 I will give you. However haven't found a working Workbench yet.

 

10: What risk? Quaff a Goldenrod and it's gone. It's not the concept of poisoning I dislike, it's the complete non-threat of it. Same with Infection.

 

As for mining, my complaint is the new method of digging down for a day and mining properly is BORING as hell compared to boulder mining, where you were exploring at the same time and always encountering things.

[Brian9824]

5: No. 90% of my time with this game is with the same group. Latency has not been an issue. Combat is different.

 

7: The only thing I didn't know was that Knives were better used on Gore blocks

 

6 and 12 I will give you. However haven't found a working Workbench yet.

 

10: What risk? Quaff a Goldenrod and it's gone. It's not the concept of poisoning I dislike, it's the complete non-threat of it. Same with Infection.

 

As for mining, my complaint is the new method of digging down for a day and mining properly is BORING as hell compared to boulder mining, where you were exploring at the same time and always encountering things.

 

For the mining you don't really need to dig down. There are iron boulders and below that is 4-5 nodes of iron that you don't need to do a mine for. You can quickly mine those then move on to the next nitrate boulder for instance and do the same thing you did before without having to make a full blown mine.

[LowfDog]

My two cents:

 

First off, hats off to the devs and testers for A18. This is challenging again, although my crew's limited play time means we haven't hit our first horde yet. I really enjoy that traders are a lot less ridiculous to find in RWG, you just use common sense to find them.

 

I'm doing a str build with a little Sta, and teammates are doing other trees, so we have a good distro of loot.

 

My only issue is duct tape being used so much compared to the rate at which it drops/and bones drop. The weird hills that disappear as you get closer is somewhat annoying, but doesn't seem to hurt gameplay, so I'm sure it will be fixed in time.

 

But again, pretty happy with A18.

[Mark97348]

Haven't played a ton yet due to miserable frame rate issue. Can't find any setting to keep consistent 30 FPS.

 

But initial thoughts:

 

1) Graphics look very nice (if your computer can actually run them). However, had to bump everything to low to run it. so meh...

2) Zombies spawned in 10 feet behind me. I literally did a 360 looking for any zombies. none in sight from any direction so started chopping tree with my stone axe, and I get stunned by a lumberjack from behind me a few seconds after I just spun a 360 checking for zombies. Spawning them at your location on day 1 is total crap. And this was less than 100 meters from where I started the game. getting mauled from the first minutes sucks.

3) I did over 12 club hits to a zombie (upper torso and/or head shots) and he did not die. I know I was low level (no upgrades to speak of yet), but seriously 12 wooden club swings to chest and head can't even stun a friggin zombie on the nomad setting?

4) Starting locations for new games are not favorable. I have gotten snow and my friend got wasteland. Shouldn't always start in Green Forest, but continual starts in the crappiest biomes of the game is not enjoyable.

5) Because of the FPS rates requiring a top of the line PC, none of the friends I have played with over the years are wanting to play. So now I am stuck playing by myself. Fix the FPS issues so more of the people who bought your game can actually play it. Didn't have these issues much prior to A17.

[Limdood]

5. I noticed one big difference in A18 is that zombies will PREDICT when i'm going to dart in. If i'm running towards a zombie that sees me, it will start a swing to land when i WOULD arrive. Obviously this is definitely on the "smart" end for zombies, but it makes sense...like you said, melee combat was unerringly easy vs. walkers because the swing patterns were overly predictable. Now zombies will swing at the air early, or hold a hit and swing late, which combined with the rage mechanic allowing them to lurch forwards makes melee combat just dangerous enough to actually be a tradeoff. There's no denying that melee does a LOT of damage, and zombies go down FAST from it, and with no ammo expenditure, but now you'll have to sink the occasional bandage or honey in, or fight extra-conservatively (sacrifice safety for speed, or speed for safety).

 

6. I don't recall jumping being cheap on stamina in A17, and as others have said, there are still pre-saw options for setting up your base to not need 6 jumps to enter.

 

7. In my game, I have 270 bones on day 6....wildlife, as well as vultures and dogs are more plentiful than ever, and the gore piles on the ground give quite large amounts of bones. While I've definitely noticed I could always use more duct tape (and I try to find/craft it when I can), I can't say I've noticed a shortage.

 

10. do you maybe mean dysentery? Food poisoning seems to be a 1-time vomit-and-lose-most-of-your-food. Dysentery is the longer term water and food loss cured with goldenrod tea. Also, I can definitely argue that no one eats or drinks away from base. I almost always carry food and water with me and use it on the run, and food poisoning and dysentery have absolutely set me back in my gameplay. I've actually significantly raised my impression of the value of the iron gut perk.

 

11. The farm blocks are pretty cool, and seem to represent a lack of easily farmable soil in the game (the soil in game is "clay soil" and many/most of the crops you find growing are dead). They're expensive to craft...unless you know the ingredients and seek them out...again, gore piles help a lot, providing both nitrate and flesh to make them. Also, as mentioned in another thread, farm plots are lootable from luxury houses and farm POIs. Also, I have, in my current game, a connected 4x1 crop plot line with corn, mushroom, corn, potato in that order...no issues planting or growing.

 

12. I love the magazines...those little bonuses can really add a cool roguelike element to the game if you unlock a really useful, off-specialization item blueprint, or find a particular playstyle book bonus (I was floored with excitement when I found a "no encumbrance at night" magazine...it was amazing - those are exactly the kinds of magazines I always wanted to see in game). BTW, If you think that you actually CANNOT make a bicycle with the magazine perks, without buying the perk - test it. try spawning in the magazines and learning them and seeing if you can make a bike on a found workbench without buying grease monkey. If not, then put in a bug report - because it would have to be a bug. But if the issue is just needing to find a workbench, or find, say 3 books instead of just one, then I'd imagine it's working as intended.

 

13. I prefer mining in this state. I love passing those new specialized surface boulders. I've bookmarked a few near my base in the games I'm in, and it's great having to move and look for specific veins and make new shafts for them....In my coop game, we actually have a shortage of iron...that has NEVER happened to me in any previous alpha....Iron has always been stupidly common in abundance in every bit of stone....Now it's a resource I have to seek, AND I have all the tools I need to do so...The game created a problem and gave me the tools to efficiently solve the problem, and I love that.

[CrypticGirl]

Okay, I only have a few things.

 

1) I haven't had this happen to me. But I have had more trouble than ever finding a light-up helmet of sorts. I always ended up buying from the trader.

 

4) Yeah, I'm not too crazy about this change either. But it is workable; I've always had the policy of looting every nest I see as I explore.

 

5) Melee is truly different. What bugs me more than anything is that the power attack animation seems to be identical to the regular attack animation (or at least too similar to notice much of a difference).

 

9) RWG seems to be a hit or miss, depending on the seed you use, or whether you encounter the types of bugs I've seen reported. I do like that they added some pre-generated maps though.

 

10) I am rather boggled at how properly cooked food can give you food poisoning, whereas with canned food, you have no idea how long it's been sitting on the shelf. Yes, canned food may have long shelf life, but not infinite.

 

11) I haven't done any farming in A18 yet, but I see these new farm plot blocks as a means to let you farm in any biome.

 

12) I do have to question the usefulness of the schematics myself. Even if you do learn the recipe by reading the schematic, you'd still have to dump points into the relevant perk to increase the crafting speed and quality. So what's the point of these schematics? (The only exceptions to this might be the workstation and vehicle schematics.) I do like those other magazines though.

 

13) Yeah, I've always hated mining. I do like the surface ores, but I'm having a heck of a time finding iron. (I've found everything else but iron, perhaps the one thing you need the most of...)

[vedrit]

10) I am rather boggled at how properly cooked food can give you food poisoning, whereas with canned food, you have no idea how long it's been sitting on the shelf. Yes, canned food may have long shelf life, but not infinite.

 

I can understand why canned food might have a chance of food poisoning. As for cooking, we're not exactly cooking in properly sanitized environments, with sterilized tools, clean hands, and properly prepared ingredients. It would be neat if there were an improved cooking machine (oven or something? Faster, maybe, and uses electricity?) that would reduce food poisoning chance, but that's just one part of the whole process.

[Ghostlight]

5. I noticed one big difference in A18 is that zombies will PREDICT when i'm going to dart in. If i'm running towards a zombie that sees me, it will start a swing to land when i WOULD arrive.

 

I am finding this quite easy to exploit. Pull up short or even stand still and let them come. They will do their preemptive swing as you described, miss (always), cause you're not there, then you can step in and do whatever you like to them.

[CrypticGirl]

Another gripe I have with A18 in general is all those darn mountains! While they look cool and all, they render all the vehicles (sans gyrocopter and maybe the joke blimp) practically useless.

[Scyris]

Another gripe I have with A18 in general is all those darn mountains! While they look cool and all, they render all the vehicles (sans gyrocopter and maybe the joke blimp) practically useless.

 

Yeah they seemed to have severely nerfed the Vehicles climbing ability, havem't tried the 4x4 yet, but the minibike and motorcycle is getting slowed to a crawl even on small hills, was never like that in a17.

[Scyris]

I am finding this quite easy to exploit. Pull up short or even stand still and let them come. They will do their preemptive swing as you described, miss (always), cause you're not there, then you can step in and do whatever you like to them.

 

This actually makes sense, if you see most zombie movies and such the first thing a zombie tries is to reach out and grab you more often than not, but since there is no grab function in 7dtd they just swing early hoping you walk into it, simulating a grab. I learned from watching streamers before I even got to try a18 myself that its best to bait them into that swing, so that you can safely move in to get a hit in with melee while they are stuck in the "cooldown" it also delays their rage mechanic a second or 2 possibly letting you get another hit in. I do however, hate the rage mechanic in a way as well... trying to melee a zombie trying to run thru you is a pain in the ass, as their head moves like a frigging bobblehead and with how the melee swings are so short now compared to a17, its VERY easy to completly miss, even moreso than A17.

 

I'm on day 15 in my current game and I am starting to relize that specing into melee weapons was a waste of skill points. Might be because I am trying agility out, and you cannot knockdown with knives, that and the bleed seems bugged. I have lv 3 deep cuts, and a 4x stacked bleed should be doing more than 2 damage a tick, when a single bleed does 1 damage a tick, I don't think its applying it properly or something as it should be doing more damage than it is. Also the bleed is bad because it can chain activate their rage mode as they bleed, they really need to shut off stuff like bleed/burning from being able to trigger it, as that really hurts knives playstyle as its all about the bleeds.

[PinKidd]

I have no idea how you mined boulders in A17 efficiently and for a sustained period of time.

I am our group's miner and I had mines laid down to bedrock for each resource.

I initially tried the boulder to boulder method and it gave WAY less resource to time spent (once you had located your bedrock veins ofc)

Once you were in a vein, it pretty much seemed to go on indefinitely - I could easily do a days full mining and get back home for dark with 20k+ of all 3 main mineable resources (lead/coal/nitrate).

I'm yet to test out bedrock mining on A18, but if it works in a similar vein (see what I did there! 😁) to A17, and you don't like the new surface mining, then I would suggest you give it another go at least.

[meganoth]

12) I do have to question the usefulness of the schematics myself. Even if you do learn the recipe by reading the schematic, you'd still have to dump points into the relevant perk to increase the crafting speed and quality. So what's the point of these schematics? (The only exceptions to this might be the workstation and vehicle schematics.) I do like those other magazines though.

 

Right, the recipes for tier2 weapons and tools don't have much value, there must be about 13 to 18.

 

The armor recipes might make sense as the armor value doesn't increase with quality (if I remember correctly ??). You also forgot food and seed recipes as exceptions.

[grieferbastard]

Raw veins of resources like iron are super easy to find now and very common.

 

You can also get vast quantities of iron disassembling vehicles, or even just debris in a house. I pulled 6,000 iron scrap in half an in game day just clearing cars in a small town, plus metric tons of other useful parts. I have restarted 3 times to try different areas and every single one has had multiple iron veins near the start house.

 

I go find a workbench. They spawn, as do most benches, and do my crafting there until I can put the points into building them myself.

 

What changed in zombies is rage/jogging at times, specifically because people could kill zombies all day every day with 0 risk by walking backward. Now there is a pronounced element of risk in fighting zombies and the resource cost potentially higher - healing materials, infection risk.

 

What I love about A18 is the survival necessity in exploration and risk management. I can't just start out day 1, pick a hill/dig a hole and start building my base and know I'm going to be fine wherever. It's a post apoc zombie wasteland, I need to scavenge, manage risk and resource and I'm not going to be able to start building my ideal base on day 1.

 

It's the beginning of real gameplay segments, which I'm happy to see. An early game (nomadic, scavenge, survive, get through the night), a mid game (secure large resource stockpiles, support/sustain weapons and gear that let you deal with 14/21/28 day hordes, secure transportation) and late game (develop fortification, base scale resource management, long term horde defense, outposts for specific resources, production chains for top tier gear).

 

I get that not everyone is going to want that though and some people miss being able to pick a nice spot by a lake and build a 100% safe, zombie proof base there that can support all their needs and do that very quickly right out of the gate. Then go have an adventure clearing a POI and maybe get some mods or such when they want a break from grinding a vast, secure resource stockpile. That was the crux of the issue with zombies digging and the end of 'learn by doing' that upset some people. I think it would be great to have more granular control of zombie behavior but, end of the day, TFP is making the game they want to make and that's not unreasonable.

[Jysen]

#11. I'm sad to see how they've changed farming mechanics from previous alphas. Im happy with crafting a hoe and creating a farm. I didn't even mind having to convert product into seeds every time. I'm sure many complained about the ridiculous time it took to make fertilizer, but for me, that was part of the appeal. There was no instant gratification, you earned what you made in the game. Last batch of fertilizer I made on my PS4 game took 357 minutes lol. Did they remove the use of fertilizer cause I've yet to see anyone talk about that aspect of farming.

 

#13. I'm 100% in agreement with this. I loved building up my character and stats to be able to crunch those boulders in a few swings. Most mining I ever did was when I create a centralized forge/workshop and the tunnel system to connect to each base to access it. I sometimes would branch into a vein, but for the most part, I never specifically searched for them.

 

I prefer to be above ground, it gave me the perfect opportunity to explore the area, opportunity to hunt, and never knew if zombies would pop up, pack of dogs or a bear for that matter. But chasing those boulders meant I was venturing into areas I never would have normally, which has led me to find POI's as well.

 

I obtained enough resources from those boulders. Can it be compared to actually mining a vein? No. So I don't see why that had to be changed as it wasn't game breaking. It's not like they respawned.

 

I hope they reconsider this aspect. It may sound odd, but going after those boulders and crunching them was enjoyable for me. Again, this may be because I was above ground, where I rather be playing.

[Ghostlight]

I've now got to grips with A18 mining. It is very efficient, but just so very BORING compared to boulder flitting, which I found stimulating; exactly as Jysen described.

[stupid]

13) You have a fully destructible voxel world and you think mining should consist of breaking surface boulders?

[Roland]

I've now got to grips with A18 mining. It is very efficient, but just so very BORING compared to boulder flitting, which I found stimulating; exactly as Jysen described.

 

Have you tried borg ship flitting? Might feel absolutely Picardian

[Ghostlight]

13) You have a fully destructible voxel world and you think mining should consist of breaking surface boulders?

 

I have a fully destructible voxel world so I think anything is possible.

[Jysen]

13) You have a fully destructible voxel world and you think mining should consist of breaking surface boulders?

 

Your missing the point, it's not about how destructive the world is, nor was it ever stated mining was entirely based upon boulders. It was an alternative to mining that yielded some resources, and kept the player above ground level. I won't rewrite what I posted above lol, but for some of us, it was a good way to multitask while above ground. I could hunt, be hunted, find POI's and venture into areas I might never have ventured into, all the while still gain some resources at the same.

 

It didn't break the system, and mining was still valuable, but for me anyway, I always prefer to be above ground 95% of the time. But that's just me.

[OzHawkeye]

Your missing the point, it's not about how destructive the world is, nor was it ever stated mining was entirely based upon boulders. It was an alternative to mining that yielded some resources, and kept the player above ground level. I won't rewrite what I posted above lol, but for some of us, it was a good way to multitask while above ground. I could hunt, be hunted, find POI's and venture into areas I might never have ventured into, all the while still gain some resources at the same.

 

It didn't break the system, and mining was still valuable, but for me anyway, I always prefer to be above ground 95% of the time. But that's just me.

 

At the risk of turning the old debate about underground bases on its head, I personally like that you can no longer survive on boulder mining (to the extent that you need to mine at all anyway). There's now at least a reason to go underground, which, absent an underground base, there wasn't much of before this.

[ZombiDweller]

10) Food poisoning mechanic. Get rid of it. It adds nothing. Players only eat at their base. And always have yellow tea. So if I eat something that gives me poisoning, I simply get a yellow tea from the very same chest and cure myself. What did that add to proceedings? Lose this mechanic, it's garbage.

 

I get food poisoned constantly every 20-30 food eaten, cooked. Canned food have chance of 0% so i dont count them. Loot abundance 50%.

This is just stupidly ridiculous situation, current game day 24 i have been food poisoned already like 5-6 times. And loosing all the water & food instantly trough your bowels. And causing you heavily crippled, and find food is really difficult in this state.

 

Only food you can eat in this game is canned, and finding it really hard with limited loot and no loot respawn.

 

Ps. how players have time to drink golden rod tea when food poisoning works instantly after eating food item?

[Ghostlight]

Sorry that was my bad, I meant Dysentery

[Khulkhuum]

Drinking red tea doesn't give you dysentery and grants a buff for lower food usage. You can stack it a couple times even.

[Jysen]

At the risk of turning the old debate about underground bases on its head, I personally like that you can no longer survive on boulder mining (to the extent that you need to mine at all anyway). There's now at least a reason to go underground, which, absent an underground base, there wasn't much of before this.

 

Oh I agree lol. Not trying to bring up that form of debate at all. I'm not opposed to having to mine, it's just I personally find it boring to be underground, but I can't say I never was underground grinding for resources lol. Granted now that they dig there's that "threat" factor and all, but just not the same in my opinion. It'll be alright at the end of the day, just kinda bummed to learn that option got removed lol.