Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

[Vintorez]

Still think the Magnum should be replaced with something more like the Desert Eagle. This would allow for a larger default magazine and for more mods to be used on it. The Magnum often doesn't even feel like an upgrade over the pistol when you have perks and a decent selection of mods available.

[Gazz]

im talking about the knife heavy attack. with the bleed effect that stacks.

Both knife attacks add bleeding stacks.

[Adam the Waster]

Both knife attacks add bleeding stacks.

 

ohh i thought the heavy attack gives a special kind of effect. im dumb!

 

 

but i do love the knife's there fun to uses just wished that there a safer way to uses them!

[Tnasty68]

1 plant gives 1 seed. 5 plants for 1 seed is ridiculous.

 

1 meat gives 1 boiled or grilled meat. 5 meat for 1 boiled/grilled meat is ridiculous.

 

1 large bone gives 1 bone knife. 5 bones for 1 knife is ridiculous.

 

1 rez sickness is so 1990s. Bad enough you get thrown all the way back at your bed roll but now your weak for 30 minutes because you got overwhelmed by zombies.

 

Max stamina and health reduction needs to go. There is no point in it other to make the game frustrating. Make it a switch that defaults to off at the least.

 

The new crafting 'helper' blocks aren't helping. I like to search the menu for what I want not perform some voodoo nonsense to conjure up a block that isn't right only to have to repeat it over and over.

 

Forced update to Alpha 18. I was playing in Alpha 17 and now my games are trash. I didn't want 18 especially forced!

 

 

 

If you change the above maybe.

 

 

This is actually a great balance change. could be tweaked a bit by perks perhaps? maybe it is and I havent noticed yet.

 

but getting 1 seed per 1 fruit/vegetable was just too OP. especially considering traders buy food and you could just make a ton of stews, pies, cornbread etc... not to mention beer/coffee/grain alcohol.

 

Meat could be 1 for 1 would just need to drop the harvest rate way down. it is a survival game and food in survival should be one of the most challenging aspects.

[Vechs]

1) Pump shotgun animation is bleh. It's an anti-aircraft gun with how high it flings itself upwards. Shotguns IRL come straight back into your shoulder, and don't rise that much. 7 Days isn't IRL but the radical movement of your crosshair made the pump shotgun very unfun to use.

 

2) I think the skinning perk (The Huntsman) should move to the Agility tree. It gives you mats for Light Armor, so should be in the Light Armor tree. The Agility tree is also the one with bows and striking from the shadows and stealth, which sounds like hunting to me.

 

Currently, to be the best guy at hunting animals, you need 3 different trees -- Perception, Fortitude, and Agility, because the animal tracking is in Perception. I think cutting that down to just Perception/Agility is the way to go.

 

3) The cooking perk being in STR is strange, but Fortitude is already an overloaded tree, and I looked at it trying to think of something you could switch. Maybe Heavy Armor and Cooking trade places? But that kind of guts the "Tank" aspect that Fort was going for. I'm not sure what to do on this one, but Cooking seems to not really belong in any one specific tree, but Fort having the Farming stuff seems like the most likely place.

 

4) Infiltrator is very lackluster and could probably be just combined with the Lockpicking perk.

[Tnasty68]

Shotgun and weapon mechanics

 

pump shotgun reload needs to be fixed.

 

I have been railing on this since alpha 1 back when a single shotgun shell completely reloaded the shotgun, now shells are 1 for 1 but the reload still isn't correct.

 

Considering the power of shotguns and even more so now with things like duck bill choke this a proper reload animation/mechanic is both a nerf and buff.

 

if you dump all 8 rounds it is very OP that you load 2 and are right back in the fight. Each shell you fired should need to be loaded individually and should take you much longer to reload an empty gun. However the buff side of it is if you are topping up and have only fired 1 shell adding 1 back in should be quicker and if you have emptied the gun a proper interrupt-able reload mechanic would allow for single loading straight to the chamber which would let you fire your entire ammo supply continuously just at a slower rate than from firing from a loaded magazine.

 

Other firearms also should receive proper loading mechanics. if you have a detachable magazine fed weapon like the pistol (m9) AK mp5 etc... if you don't fire it until its empty you only need to change the magazine and do not need to cycle the action resulting in a faster reload.

 

the hunting rifle should also should have either a default 4-5 round magazine it appears to be based off a remington 700 which has either an internal mag or a detachable box mag. Could be an mod to make it a viable late game competitor to the sniper rifle.

[UrtZ]

the hunting rifle should also should have either a default 4-5 round magazine it appears to be based off a remington 700 which has either an internal mag or a detachable box mag.

+1 , somehow didn't think about it.

[Adam the Waster]

+1 , somehow didn't think about it.

 

3 take it or leave it

[Brian9824]

The one potential issue I see with trader is the quest rewards. They feel really OP, especially with the consumables. Getting 15 first aid bandages for 1 quest that took me 10 minutes to do is insane. At least for the Tier 1-3 quests it almost feels if the quantity should be toned down or if possible tied into the loot percentage on the server.

 

Right now the trader quests and vending machines are what is keeping us alive. So much food and consumables available. If the trader rewards and vending machines both operated on server loot percentages that would be nice.

[rdunham3]

The ability to craft guns is completely overwhelmed by finding better guns than you can craft in loot. I imagine this will change in mid-late game but I haven't gotten there yet. For that matter crafting almost anything early on is pretty pointless. I think that's been tipped a touch too far towards looting, but it could just be my RNG luck has been better this particular game than normal. /shrug

 

Farming has been reduced to a late-game hobby. Not by the seeds, although I did think that for a week or so, but by the farm plots. Suggest making them slightly lower rotting flesh cost. Balance of canned foods etc. in POI's make farming unnecessary anyway, provided you spend most of your time looting. Well...single player. A group eats so much more that they probably would need to farm. Can't test that personally since both boys have all but stopped playing again.

 

The dungeon/story POIs start developing much the same feel after the first hundred or so. Much of their jump-scare charm wears off when nearly every building is one and there are only so many techniques possible to apply to them. At this point I'm happy to see an old building I don't remember because I know its interior will be in a non-story style and therefore different.

 

Dye not having any value at all feels weird. Glass blocks have a (minimal) value. Why not dye/paint?

 

By day 5 (solo, mostly default settings) I had a couple guns to use as backup for my mostly melee looting runs. Felt good. By day 10 I was using the pistol in maybe 1/3 of the POI's where there were groups of zombies, not because I had to but because I had hundreds of extra rounds. Early game so not having to blow through lots of ammo on horde nights is a big factor, I'm sure. I've got a lousy baseball bat that's become my backup for the spear, and sometimes even primary melee, as it's more effective at everything but reach despite being 3 quality levels lower than the spear. Crazy.

 

Spears sometimes disappear when thrown. I'm assuming it's managing to fall through the terrain instead of sticking but there is usually a zombie between me and where it lands so I can't be sure. I doubt I'll put mods in spears ever because of that chance for loss. Spears can't jab through things we can shoot through which lessens their utility when defending. Would be nice if they could jab through bars, for instance. They sure look like they should be able to.

 

The new trash cans, trash carts, food piles etc. don't appear until I'm within a few (3?) blocks of them, and disappear if I step away again. I'm guessing that's a bug. Encourages close-in examination of every room, lol.

 

Zombies seem to avoid the falling floors if there's a non-falling path close by. Been trying to lure them over the collapsing ceiling tiles and haven't gotten them to yet. They shouldn't realize.

 

The rage-on-hit hasn't been happening very often in 18.1 experimental compared to the last 18.0 experimental on the same difficulty. I like that. It was too often before.

[Quath]

I have been looking forward to the new update and I was not disappointed. Great job!

 

My wife and I team up to play together. We are on day 12 and here are some of my thoughts:

 

1. I have friendly fire on (I like having to be careful not to shoot your friend in the face). However, we keep hitting each other far away. Like if we attack the same block, we need to be a couple of blocks away from the target. It seems we could be closer in older versions to the target of an attack.

 

2. The infection is interesting. Until we can get a recipe for antibiotics, we are constantly on the lookout for honey and antibiotics. When we hit a new town, we rush to any pharmacy. However, looting an entire pharmacy resulted in just 1 antibiotic. This may have bad luck. We just take turns with who will just get sicker and sicker. I think maybe a tea that can help keep it in check may be a good balance to this.

 

3. We put in a lot of torches in our base, but closed it so zombies could not see. But I guess that doesn't really help. By the second day, we were constantly killing screamers and the hordes they were bringing. We abandoned that base and ran to a new one after killing around 10 screamers in a row.

 

4. I would like a rabbit snare trap.

 

5. Sometimes trees would appear and disappear if it went from one side of my screen to the other.

 

6. I think it would be cool if there was some zombie population density map. So at some point screamers have no new zombies to pull forth until more accumulate in some hidden population map. That way you could kind of clear out a zone and not have endless screamer hordes.

[Shin]

I just found +1150 gasoline in one fuel pump. The other had just over 500. Default settings, pregen03, SP. Loot really is off and needs balance.

 

And I do remember Madmole stating that gas is harder to find and well balanced. Guess he is wrong... again.

[bdubyah]

I just found +1150 gasoline in one fuel pump. The other had just over 500. Default settings, pregen03, SP. Loot really is off and needs balance.

 

And I do remember Madmole stating that gas is harder to find and well balanced. Guess he is wrong... again.

 

He did nerf the gas barrels. And I think what ended up happening is they instead increased fuel consumption on vehicles. And maybe the auger and chainsaw, haven't checked those. But the 4x4 went from "<property name="fuelKmPerL" value="1"/>" in A17 to "<property name="fuelKmPerL" value=".1"/>" in A18. So it uses 10x more gas.

[Vintorez]

ohh i thought the heavy attack gives a special kind of effect. im dumb!

 

 

but i do love the knife's there fun to uses just wished that there a safer way to uses them!

 

The heavy attack always applies the maximum stacks of bleeds possible, while light attacks only have a % chance to apply a single stack per hit. Once you're at like rank 4 or 5, it's fun to just hit zombies with a single power attack then walk away, letting them die behind you.

[Louie04k]

Fun Pimps PLEASE add back the fov slider. I literally feel sick when having to use the garbage fov you have it set to. Yes i know you can use commands, thats not the point. Who ever thought that was a good idea....

[JCrook1028]

Fun Pimps PLEASE add back the fov slider. I literally feel sick when having to use the garbage fov you have it set to. Yes i know you can use commands, thats not the point. Who ever thought that was a good idea....

 

Ditto Ditto and MORE Ditto!

[Laz Man]

I did a longish vid showing the 3D representation of the glancing system on each weapon and also when they hit. I didnt go too much into detail. It could be a great discussion for debate.

 

 

Cool demo!

[Phoenixshade35]

I don't know if this was mentioned but it seems like the hit box for zombies heads are harder to hit, i mean with melee, i smack them with all sorts of weapons but it seems to do glancing blows more than normal hits, am i simply not seeing it right?

[Wardronex]

WTF!?!

 

Invisible animals still a thing after what?? 2 years now?? Was added right after I was told, "We do not fix game features with hacks/mods."

Well yes you do.

and nobody

in all this time

could find the time

to go in and separate animal spawns from zombie spawns

and fix the code?

 

Lets delve a bit further into animals and food

I was playing with 3 other people and at least 2 of us had to eat glass so there would be enough food for the other 2.

Also sometimes they would eat and get food poisoning and have to eat glass anyway.

This was an every other day thing.

Half a town looted (12-15 poi's) and hunting entire day 3+km searched (50 raw meat max) produced jack ♥♥♥♥ for food only enough for 2 people.

 

Lets move on to what I brought up on many previous occasions

Lootable container vs non-lootable containers

Still set heavily in favor of non-lootable 66%

so only 33% of all possible containers that spawn in the world are lootable.

Out of those containers how many can contain food? 50%<generous on my part

which means that only 16% can possibly have food and how many of those containers when opened have 0% loot in them? 25%

and of the now 12% possible food found containers how many do actually have food and not something other than food? 25%

so now we are left with 3% possibility to find food and how much food is in these? 1-2 cans

out of those cans what are they mainly? dog and cat food 50% - can of sham 25% - other 25%

 

Okay lets talk the either learn it by buying skills or finding schematics?

So I learn skills but then find the schematic....I just wasted skill points.

I know there is a forget elixer you can buy from vendor but it costs 40,000 coins

Really? REALLY!?!

Lets give it away for free from traders.... and be an always have..... so it doesn't suck when we find the schematics.

You could make it so we spawn naked in the world again but have all our skills to re-spend.

 

Bloodmoon

Hordes still only last like 1-2 hours

I know you are trying to make it gradually harder

but lets have it last the entire night already.

You prepare for the horde and they disappoint in the beginning stages.

Keep the stages just make them last longer.

 

Nights are still very boring especially in beginning few weeks of playing you either mine, craft, or sit around.

Yeah some stay out and fight through it, but if you are not looting poi's the zombies a few and far between.

(more so now then previous alphas---zombies? where?)

 

Map generation

Whats with all the water on the outer edges?

every map water sometimes water 1km before outer edge.

As far as I can see water.

when did Arizona become an island?

is there still radiation out there? IDK? never tested it. don't care to test it.

whats the point if there is or isn't its just water.

 

Poi's are few a and far between especially in temperate zones.

shouldn't there be more in these zones as it was not bombed to hell and gone?

 

level gating- operating machines gating(<forge tables stations vehicles etc.)

Im do not feel the need to elaborate this. you all know what you did.

 

Not to mention the bullet sponge zombies.

and the horrible coding that tells a zombie not facing you when shot with bolt/arrow etc. Right where you are and it turns and come right for you.

its called make target when hurt in the Xml....fine for animals etc.

but player should be removed and instead a look command should be added.

 

Lets not forget the horrible predictable fall down get back up then take a bit more damage and finally die mechanic.

there is no randomness in this equation.

I shot a zombie 7 times in the same leg no dismemberment it fell got back up and died before that happened.

so dismemberment has randomness but the fall down get back up does not?

 

so you want us all to play the game the way you want just like you want us to go through the poi's?

why not get rid or open world and just make a linear game like doom or whatever.

 

I don't know what you all did this time and I don't know why you did it all.

This is not a question it is rhetorical as I don't care.

Just hurry up and release 18 so I can fix everything long before your entire team does as always.

[Hek Harris]

I'm sure the devs will listen to your calm and friendly advices.

[Jugginator]

"Lets delve a bit further into animals and food

I was playing with 3 other people and at least 2 of us had to eat glass so there would be enough food for the other 2.

Also sometimes they would eat and get food poisoning and have to eat glass anyway."

 

That sounds like a personal problem. Glass is NOT food, okay? It's clear, kinda looks like sugar when crushed up and maybe a bit shiny, but tis not edible! Lol but really, you know the trader you get brough to on day 1? Canned good / cooked food / buried supplies quests. Vitamins = no food poisoning but rly there's always plenty of food.

 

Red tea = 1 point in master chef (non level gated) and some punched flowers you can find anywhere there's green ground -- it reduces hunger degeneration significantly.

 

If you got invisible animals something is really broken, I've never seen (heh) invisible animals. Plenty of game to kill in all builds.

[Gazz]

If 3 people are mining and no one is taking care of food I can easily see that happening.

Maybe we need to explain in more detail that you will starve without food. Was that the feedback being expressed?

That or both very bad luck and zero vending machines found. It's theoretically possible when you let randomness into a game.

 

@Jugginator

He's talking about an internal XML feature that you never see ingame, just like "= Tree Small = Random Helper" exists in the game but is never seen by a player. I did not read the rest because the first and apparently most important issue was completely irrelevant. /shrug

[JaxTeller718]

If 3 people are mining and no one is taking care of food I can easily see that happening.

Maybe we need to explain in more detail that you will starve without food. Was that the feedback being expressed?

That or both very bad luck and zero vending machines found. It's theoretically possible when you let randomness into a game.

 

@Jugginator

He's talking about an internal XML feature that you never see ingame, just like "= Tree Small = Random Helper" exists in the game but is never seen by a player. I did not read the rest because the first and apparently most important issue was completely irrelevant. /shrug

 

Wait. Food is meant to be eaten? I didnt see that in your precious tutorial!

[Jugginator]

If 3 people are mining and no one is taking care of food I can easily see that happening.

Maybe we need to explain in more detail that you will starve without food. Was that the feedback being expressed?

That or both very bad luck and zero vending machines found. It's theoretically possible when you let randomness into a game.

 

@Jugginator

He's talking about an internal XML feature that you never see ingame, just like "= Tree Small = Random Helper" exists in the game but is never seen by a player. I did not read the rest because the first and apparently most important issue was completely irrelevant. /shrug

 

*giggle* Ahh gotcha. Ohhh I bet he saw that in the DM spawn menu or something. It doesn't actually mean invisible animal xD

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Wait. Food is meant to be eaten? I didnt see that in your precious tutorial!

 

Nope - only glass is meant to be eaten mate

[Laz Man]

WTF!?!

 

Invisible animals still a thing after what?? 2 years now?? Was added right after I was told, "We do not fix game features with hacks/mods."

Well yes you do.

and nobody

in all this time

could find the time

to go in and separate animal spawns from zombie spawns

and fix the code?

 

Lets delve a bit further into animals and food

I was playing with 3 other people and at least 2 of us had to eat glass so there would be enough food for the other 2.

Also sometimes they would eat and get food poisoning and have to eat glass anyway.

This was an every other day thing.

Half a town looted (12-15 poi's) and hunting entire day 3+km searched (50 raw meat max) produced jack ♥♥♥♥ for food only enough for 2 people.

 

Lets move on to what I brought up on many previous occasions

Lootable container vs non-lootable containers

Still set heavily in favor of non-lootable 66%

so only 33% of all possible containers that spawn in the world are lootable.

Out of those containers how many can contain food? 50%<generous on my part

which means that only 16% can possibly have food and how many of those containers when opened have 0% loot in them? 25%

and of the now 12% possible food found containers how many do actually have food and not something other than food? 25%

so now we are left with 3% possibility to find food and how much food is in these? 1-2 cans

out of those cans what are they mainly? dog and cat food 50% - can of sham 25% - other 25%

 

Okay lets talk the either learn it by buying skills or finding schematics?

So I learn skills but then find the schematic....I just wasted skill points.

I know there is a forget elixer you can buy from vendor but it costs 40,000 coins

Really? REALLY!?!

Lets give it away for free from traders.... and be an always have..... so it doesn't suck when we find the schematics.

You could make it so we spawn naked in the world again but have all our skills to re-spend.

 

Bloodmoon

Hordes still only last like 1-2 hours

I know you are trying to make it gradually harder

but lets have it last the entire night already.

You prepare for the horde and they disappoint in the beginning stages.

Keep the stages just make them last longer.

 

Nights are still very boring especially in beginning few weeks of playing you either mine, craft, or sit around.

Yeah some stay out and fight through it, but if you are not looting poi's the zombies a few and far between.

(more so now then previous alphas---zombies? where?)

 

Map generation

Whats with all the water on the outer edges?

every map water sometimes water 1km before outer edge.

As far as I can see water.

when did Arizona become an island?

is there still radiation out there? IDK? never tested it. don't care to test it.

whats the point if there is or isn't its just water.

 

Poi's are few a and far between especially in temperate zones.

shouldn't there be more in these zones as it was not bombed to hell and gone?

 

level gating- operating machines gating(<forge tables stations vehicles etc.)

Im do not feel the need to elaborate this. you all know what you did.

 

Not to mention the bullet sponge zombies.

and the horrible coding that tells a zombie not facing you when shot with bolt/arrow etc. Right where you are and it turns and come right for you.

its called make target when hurt in the Xml....fine for animals etc.

but player should be removed and instead a look command should be added.

 

Lets not forget the horrible predictable fall down get back up then take a bit more damage and finally die mechanic.

there is no randomness in this equation.

I shot a zombie 7 times in the same leg no dismemberment it fell got back up and died before that happened.

so dismemberment has randomness but the fall down get back up does not?

 

so you want us all to play the game the way you want just like you want us to go through the poi's?

why not get rid or open world and just make a linear game like doom or whatever.

 

I don't know what you all did this time and I don't know why you did it all.

This is not a question it is rhetorical as I don't care.

Just hurry up and release 18 so I can fix everything long before your entire team does as always.

 

Only thing I could make out from your post is that you and your crew would be some of the first to die in a real zombie apocalypse due to your desire to eat glass and give up lol....