Impressions of Alpha 18 so far.

[Lord Shakaka]

After playing for a few days many of the changes seems ok at first. However, current horde nights seem to break some play styles now. Crating a horde base? Not really with the high default block damage zeds do. Playing a stealth game? Not on horde night, they come right for you. Point being not all play styles are viable.

 

Please no comments on git gud or change settings. I am talking about standard core mechanics of the game. I understand the settings could be changed. With that arguement I could say you could always ramp up difficulty to suit your play style. My concern is if the difficulty and learning curve gets too high it will limit the player base that would enjoy the game.

 

Crafting is interesting and I like the choosing your shape as you need it concept. I quickly learned with the looted schematics that you are gated by forged steel (lack of until you have the right perk or weapon parts that you can only get by looting like weapons. Currently, I can find better looted weapons levels 4 to 6 before I can even get the ingredients to make a level 2. So weapon crafting just seems to be just nullified. Introduction of shape blocks seem to make the table saw now with very limited use. Not sure if this will be adjusted or planned for something else in a later release.

 

Gasoline is hard to judge. I was able to get a minibike but the number of units of gasoline was changed and it feels like I might be using up more gas but it could be just the amount each unit of gas currently is worth. Will know more when and if I get to motorbike, 4x4 and gyrocopter.

 

FPS drops bad at higher altitudes. Found this out by accident. My wife got bugged on the minibike and was launched into the air. She dropped to her death from more than a 100m up. I had to use wood frames to go up and get her minibike that was still floating in the air. From that vantage point, just looking at a different direction caused the FPS to drop alot. If this is going to be the case when flying the gyrocopter, its going to be a problem trying to fly it around.

 

Looting is now a mandatory thing in the game which is a good thing. The downside is the random loot requirements for soome lower and mid level crafting items is makes low level crafting seem pointless.

 

I play with a group and the difficulty feels to be ramped up quite a bit. On day 14 horde we encountered rad zombies. Some of the standard zeds jumped 6 to 8 blocks distance.

 

Just initial thoughs through standard gameplay.