Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

[Xtrakicking]

...Greasy Monkey.....

 

Mhh... I think I just realised the perk is actually called Grease Monkey, and I've been calling it Greasy Monkey ever since the perks got implemented...

[EstebanLB]

Good idea, I posted a mockup to the devs to look at.

 

Ohhh, I just got an awesome idea. You could add some randomness to the formula. The lower the durability value, the higher the chance that the item will suddenly break or loose a big chunk of its durability, to add some challenge and a reason to carry a repair kit always with you.

The problem with this, and any inventory filling need, is the current inventory system, for wich I'm elaborating a suggestion that I will post later. Change stacks and slots to weight and volume (or a combination of both).

[Hollowprime]

You could add a club homerun ability on the clubbing perk that shoots zombies flying into a direction or a chance for a duplicate hit. The 100% damage on X hit is boring and useless for higher difficulties.

The spear could get an ability that penetrates armor (I think that's what spears do ) or have an impaling effect to stun zombies... that can turn disturbingly brutal so I'm not so sure about the second effect.

[Alexsanderr]

Can anyone else confirm that player crafted gunsafes do not have the "jammed" status, like player storage chests, and thus allows other players to lock pick gun safes of other players? This makes gun safes inferior to wooden chests for player storage and while I know y'all aren't pvp focused this seems like a small oversight is all.

[Vintorez]

Doing a Perception run and thought I'd give my thoughts on the perks. May do this for other trees.

 

Dead Eye: Pretty good match for rifles, no complaints

 

Demolition Expert: Also pretty good, but adding grenade launchers would be interesting and allow mod usage.

 

Javelin Master: Spears tend to feel pretty weak, being a precision weapon I feel this should add additional headshot damage on top of what the Perception attribute gives.

 

Lockpicking: Doesn't feel strong enough on its own except perhaps the first rank to unlock lockpick crafting, but an Auger makes this skill obsolete unless you really need to be stealthy. I'd recommend combining this with Lucky Looter (which feels too strong) so that only lockpicked containers have the increased loot value.

 

The Infiltrator: Pretty much entirely obsoleted by Urban Combat 5. Since Perception tends to be weaker in closer range engagements, this could help alleviate it by providing additional benefits when indoors. Ranks could go something like: Floor Boards and Mines take 1 second longer to trigger, Sleeper zombies are marked on the compass until they wake up, Floor Boards/Mines take 2 seconds longer to trigger, all zombies within range are marked on the compass while indoors, Can pick up land mines

 

Animal Tracker: Will likely become more valuable when food from looting is rebalanced, but could would probably be better if it took and combined with the Hunstman from the Fortitude tree to provide additional resources from harvesting as well. Fortitude already has Living off the Land and Iron Gut which I feel is adequate for their increased stamina usage.

 

The Penetrator: Pretty good but not until you get the additional target piercing making the first two ranks feel lackluster. Could have ranks 1, 3, and 5 be the ones that provide additional piercing while ranks 2 and 4 cause additional damage to subsequent targets in a piercing chain.

 

Lucky Looter: Covered in Lockpicking

 

Salvage Operations: Also pretty good, no complaints

[Axebeard]

You could add a club homerun ability on the clubbing perk that shoots zombies flying into a direction or a chance for a duplicate hit. The 100% damage on X hit is boring and useless for higher difficulties.

The spear could get an ability that penetrates armor (I think that's what spears do ) or have an impaling effect to stun zombies... that can turn disturbingly brutal so I'm not so sure about the second effect.

 

Digging these.

[Drunknmunkey]

Blunderbuss is finally useful early game. It can really save your keester below level 5 if you are able to make one and ammo. I just wish it was more of a one shot kill considering the resource cost early game and if you miss due to being in their face, the concequences for missing is a bandage or more. (auto shotty is totally needed for top teir shotty)

 

I don't understand the whining about vehicle breakdowns. Repair kits are cheap and vets keep 10+ on them at all times. *random thought*

 

I love the legendary item thing. I get bored around level 55. Part of the problem is leveling is terribly slow once you reach the 50's. Should ramp up the zed xp to ensure people actually go for lvl 100. It's a time investment thing. I don't mind spending my saturday mining and doing random things I need to do that incures very little xp however, If I only have an hour to play on a weekday and it's night 7, a single level gain from hundreds of zeds and thousands of bullets really sucks. 50 night sevens to 100 isn't a viable option for most people.

 

The problem I see is crafting a base. Most people craft their base between 10-30. They gain a ton of xp which propels them to lvl 50. Now their base is done and leveling slows down AND a source of leveling is gone if a person considers their base to be *done*.

 

Building quests! Trader acquisitions you to help a poor NPC noob shore up their defences. Spend X, Type W,M,C recources upgrading a POI. Most players have abundant building materials they have no use for after a base is complete. Even help defend after resources spent? "Thanks for the help stranger-- Oh, just in time, Here they come!"

 

More Bosses! I love the giant pig but, it's the only one and in a really rare poi. Throw a Demo zed near sought after weapon's cache's. Not easy to take down and if they screw up they lose all the loot if the zed splodes to close to the cache.

 

Back to balancing. Armor isn't balanced at all. There's no reason to take light armor as the mobility doesn't make up for the defence. The numbers are so close to each other atm that I find myself taking which ever can hold the most mods as the mods are more powerful than defence or mobility. Heavy armor should be far more than 1-2 points higher than light armor and light armor mobility should be closer to wearing nothing.

 

The only weapon you HAVE to take skill in to use is the sniper rifle. Every single weapon other than that is perfectly functional without perk points. Sure, you don't get the bonuses but, it's not a useless weapon. Every weapon should be slightly useless without their respective points. As the sniper rifle has severe accuracy reduction so to should all other weapons which would force git gud in a weapon. Including reduced block damage from the explosive perk tree as I currently would never go that route due to the risk of harming my traps during a horde night.

 

Randomly, Need like 100 recipies for food. It's silly I need so many points to make a chili dog I'm rarely ever going to make. Even fish taco's are a joke. I can't use tuna? Cooking should be much more complex. A person should be able to specialize in cooking and just sell meals to everyone on their server. One of each ration plus 20% bonus for the skill for a meat gravy pie/stew/loaf (corn meal/golden rod/eggs). There is always a limiting reagent that prevents most cooking recipies. Farming simply makes it 100% meat/veg stew which seems like a waste. Grilled sham sandwich skewers...Don't really need a new graphic atm for them all I'd just like to see some variety as food is a problem early game and whatever you have on hand should be able to cook into something.

 

And the whole throwing a javalin thing... damage should increase by distance thrown. Face to face power attacks seem kinda silly. Should be able to throw that shiz from 10 squares away and pin a zed to the ground in a single shot. While a face to face should deal like normal damage.

[pvwolfgang420]

A few ideas...

 

Progression

Tier 1 perks should unlock crafting tier 1 items, instead of tier 2 as it is currently. The current setup renders most tier 2 schematics worthless because it only costs 1 point to unlock the crafting. Maybe move the requirement up to tier 3 so there would be more of a skill point cost.

 

Tools

Add 1 more tier between stone and forged iron (perhaps scrap?) and one super tier that could only be crafted with its corresponding perk maxed out and no schematic existing (such as diamond-tipped).

 

Expandable stacks

Perking up in a specific weapon skill could raise your stack limit for bullets. Currently, 150 is the 7.62 stack limit. What if perking up the corresponding perk allowed you to carry more in 1 stack, thereby saving precious inventory slots?

 

Bad Air

Have spaces which the air voxels are unbreathable or provide some sort of debuff or damage, such as mini radiation zones, methane or carbon dioxide pockets underground found when mining. Using gas powered tools underground could have a downside of creating unbreathable air, as an added obstacle to overcome.

 

Throwing Knives

Give the people anything and they will want more! Throwing spears is awesome but it makes me want to be able to throw knives as well.

 

Elevators

You can make a simple elevator feature. It's been toyed with before. You can do it! I believe in you!

 

Vehicle Upgrades

I think it may have been discussed before and turned down, but it would be super cool to be able to attach a basket and/or wagon to a bicycle to carry more stuff, and a trailer for other vehicles. Pegs to give someone a ride on bicycle, a sidecar for the motorcycle.

 

Remove Trader Workstations

There is always a chance of finding something amazing on day 1 which can vastly change the difficulty of your early (and sometimes mid) game. But I do not like how much of a massive difference-maker it can be whether you find a trader with working workstations or not. In any given game, you have the chance of finding a working workbench on day 1 which makes an unbelievable difference. This is a difference of having to waste a LOT of skill points in intelligence or not. I understand workbenches can be found in other places, but everyone goes to the trader right away and it is marked on the map for doing the starter quest. Having a free workbench on day 1 is just too much of an advantage and IMHO ruins the game. This applies to the forge and chem station as well, but significantly less of a difference-maker, I think.

[plamdown]

Hello,

 

I just registered in to give my feedback about a18. I'm a new player basically, starting with a18. There is a few points which come in mind about balancing (remember that only apply to singleplayer and to build 18.2, since i don't play multiplayer):

 

- The loot, i basically love the hunt for books, included the random part, but there some issue with it (at least in my opinion), this is far from beeing balanced, in a play i made it to level 40 kind of, and i actually never find that crucible, despite the hunting of any book poi and the other bookcase around other poi. I don't think this is intented especially when on another game i found the crucible recipe in the second poi. Still in that game, i did not found the forge recipe until the level 30.

On another point of the looting, the tools, i did a few start game, and just by walking around the first town i found, and looting vehicles i will often ends up with some good tools (even without lucky looter), and sometimes even steel tools, for example one game, steel sledgehammer first vehicles.

- Vehicles, here again, the rng feels off, maybe we need a leveling based rng with a better chance to loot progression-vehicles items when we levelup, because by hunting specifically for vehicles part, i end up having the motorbike before having the bicycle. It's not that i don't like it, but i think you should not get the motorbike until you reach a certain level, this allow to have better chance early game to find at least the bicycle.

- I took a look around the differents classes that you can specialized on, in particular the int build, it feels useless in some way, yes you can have forge - vehicles - chemistry early, but other than that it does not have good bonus (imo) to be worst playing with (i will prefer go for hunting books and have a stronger character even if the recipes cost more resources).

- Not sure if this is a bug or not, but i actually never found baseball bat parts (other than trader).

- Guns (looting again), i was able to found a lot of guns everywhere i go, especially pistol, but in my play i actually found like 1 shotgun level 1 (other than trader of course), and compare to other guns, again, looks off, either we need to find less other guns, or more shotguns (imo).

 

Other than the looting part, the game looks good, you can do a lot of differents stuff, one thing is kind of limiting about the ability to play the way you want in my opinion, is the rng a little bit off about must-have progression items, which actually limit you to loot endlessly to have the luck to found the forge, worbench, chemistry or crucible recipe, basically i got a 4x4 (full) and a gyro part before going to steel age, and at some point i just stop doing poi because it was not like i want to do some poi, but i need it to progress to steel (only progression-items are in concerns here, the totally random is great about mods and all other stuff).

 

Edit: i forgot to mention, one thing is missing from the crafting part, you don't actually see the general stats about what you are about to craft, base melee damage, resistance, ligth armor rating, and so on. This means you have to craft an item to actually see the stats, i know there is some rng about the stats too, but the base statistics should be display before crafting (imo).

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

You could add a club homerun ability on the clubbing perk that shoots zombies flying into a direction or a chance for a duplicate hit. The 100% damage on X hit is boring and useless for higher difficulties.

The spear could get an ability that penetrates armor (I think that's what spears do ) or have an impaling effect to stun zombies... that can turn disturbingly brutal so I'm not so sure about the second effect.

 

I want to mod the spear with a grenade, so that when it sticks to the zombie, it explodes. it takes out a chunk of durability, but does more damage. Maybe add a grenade bouquet mod so that it completely destroys the spear, but you get a mass explosion. It would be very useful for pvp if someone tries to escape in a 4x4 and you hit it with a spear.

 

For some extra crazy shennigans, maybe even an electric fence mod for the spear, you throw a spear out while standing next to an electric fence pole, and the spear now adds a line of electric fence. and hell, while we are at it, why not a mounted harpoon gun that is powered by electricity that uses spears as ammo? give it a slow rate of fire but a 400% chance of crippling because it would be awesome to play with. Penetration is determined by type of spear used. That gives non spear players a reason to craft crummy level 1 spears if they have the schematic.

 

As for the home run ability, it needs to quadruple zombie fall damage. It is absolutely annoying clearing out the shotgun messiah factory on gamestage 200 when i knock a feral off the building during a quest. I then have to go back down find where the idiot is beating against the wall, and bash his brains in for the 600th time. Knocking a zombie off of a building, and having it break all it's limbs then die would be a hell of a lot more rewarding and fun to watch instead of these meat terminators that just get back up and try to rip walls down.

[Scyris]

Thanks I think we're good. I know you guys are dying for alpha 19 dev diary, but it will come soon enough. Lets stay focused on balance here.

 

Are the compressed non-combat perks coming in a18 sometime? or is that a a19 feature? Would be a lovely little surprize for a18.3, though you may have to give us a respec potion for saves from past versions. Mind you I don't mind just restarting but I am most likely the minority in that.

 

A balance issue, I love what ya did to the shotgun, made it much more fun to use and gave it a really good niche of its own, but, could we drastically lower the block dmg on buckshot? maybe from 5 down to 1? I keep having stray pellets destroying loot containers at times. Same for the slugs, massivly lower its block damage so its less risky to use indoors. Other than that shotgun is great. Now if only in my current game I could find the damned book so I can make shotgun slugs! Day 25 and still haven't found that or a nailgun at all.

[jwagne51]

 

Back to balancing. Armor isn't balanced at all. There's no reason to take light armor as the mobility doesn't make up for the defence. The numbers are so close to each other atm that I find myself taking which ever can hold the most mods as the mods are more powerful than defence or mobility. Heavy armor should be far more than 1-2 points higher than light armor and light armor mobility should be closer to wearing nothing.

 

 

If you spec into light armor, aren't encumbered, and have Advanced Fittings in at least two/three armor mods you actual have higher than 100% mobility.

[Drunknmunkey]

@jwagne51

 

True however, spec-ing into heavy armor does the same thing. It's a bit of a moot point. Heavy armor spec-ing shouldn't give more mobility but rather more protection. Being sneaky doesn't really work right now so that's a bit moot as well. Doesn't matter if you're wearing light or heavy. Zeds wake up the same and stay asleep the same regardless.

[madmole]

Are the compressed non-combat perks coming in a18 sometime? or is that a a19 feature? Would be a lovely little surprize for a18.3, though you may have to give us a respec potion for saves from past versions. Mind you I don't mind just restarting but I am most likely the minority in that.

 

A balance issue, I love what ya did to the shotgun, made it much more fun to use and gave it a really good niche of its own, but, could we drastically lower the block dmg on buckshot? maybe from 5 down to 1? I keep having stray pellets destroying loot containers at times. Same for the slugs, massivly lower its block damage so its less risky to use indoors. Other than that shotgun is great. Now if only in my current game I could find the damned book so I can make shotgun slugs! Day 25 and still haven't found that or a nailgun at all.

 

Not likely, we have ordered localization for an 18 patch so 18 is pretty much locked down in terms of content or serious changes.

 

No I like blowing holes in walls to make quick escapes. How many games let you shoot actual holes in walls? None, so I want that feature.

[Laz Man]

Not likely, we have ordered localization for an 18 patch so 18 is pretty much locked down in terms of content or serious changes.

 

No I like blowing holes in walls to make quick escapes. How many games let you shoot actual holes in walls? None, so I want that feature.

 

Agreed, gotta leverage the voxel world...😎👍

[EstebanLB]

Fluorecent light is not craftable but is wirable and functional, is it only available at traders? Also, industrial light consumes 7W, the others 5W, and the gigantic spotlight is 5W too. Some balance is needed there

[bobross]

Not likely, we have ordered localization for an 18 patch so 18 is pretty much locked down in terms of content or serious changes.

 

No I like blowing holes in walls to make quick escapes. How many games let you shoot actual holes in walls? None, so I want that feature.

 

My only real issue with that is that shotguns with buckshot are frequently used in home defense scenarios expressly because they won't over-penetrate walls like a 5.56 or 7.62 can. Yes, I know fun gameplay trumps realism, but the damage to containers from an accidental shot or near-miss is actually a problem.

 

Could it be lowered at least on the standard ammo so that a point-blank shot where one block gets all pellets will still shatter it, but a stray pellet from a middle-distance shot won't wreck the chest you're working towards? That would keep from having to switch ammo but still alleviate the issue.

[custom_hero]

the game needs a setting for the cost of the goods for the trader. This would be a logical continuation of the loot settings.

For example, I want loot to be small, but the cost of the items found was high.

 

also need to add settings the RW gen. So that you can create a world without a trader. Many people would like to play without a trader.

[Hollowprime]

I want to mod the spear with a grenade, so that when it sticks to the zombie, it explodes. it takes out a chunk of durability, but does more damage. Maybe add a grenade bouquet mod so that it completely destroys the spear, but you get a mass explosion. It would be very useful for pvp if someone tries to escape in a 4x4 and you hit it with a spear.

 

For some extra crazy shennigans, maybe even an electric fence mod for the spear, you throw a spear out while standing next to an electric fence pole, and the spear now adds a line of electric fence. and hell, while we are at it, why not a mounted harpoon gun that is powered by electricity that uses spears as ammo? give it a slow rate of fire but a 400% chance of crippling because it would be awesome to play with. Penetration is determined by type of spear used. That gives non spear players a reason to craft crummy level 1 spears if they have the schematic.

 

As for the home run ability, it needs to quadruple zombie fall damage. It is absolutely annoying clearing out the shotgun messiah factory on gamestage 200 when i knock a feral off the building during a quest. I then have to go back down find where the idiot is beating against the wall, and bash his brains in for the 600th time. Knocking a zombie off of a building, and having it break all it's limbs then die would be a hell of a lot more rewarding and fun to watch instead of these meat terminators that just get back up and try to rip walls down.

 

The forest has molotov spears.

 

I was testing a base with a pitfall with big altitude (around 30 height) and I noticed the zombies no longer get a lot of fall damage. Normally knocking zombies out of a window from the fourth floor should destroy whatever bones they have and leave them paraplegic. And it should be more evident the heavier the zombie is (e.g. soldiers with heavy armor, construction workers, and cops).

[madmole]

Thanks for the feedback everyone lots of good stuff.

[madmole]

the game needs a setting for the cost of the goods for the trader. This would be a logical continuation of the loot settings.

For example, I want loot to be small, but the cost of the items found was high.

 

also need to add settings the RW gen. So that you can create a world without a trader. Many people would like to play without a trader.

 

The game doesn't need 80 billion settings, you simply need mods. I'm not saying having an economy slider is a bad thing, but it just makes balancing default settings a moving target by adding more stuff.

 

A lot of you have completely forgotten what its like to be a new player and continue to want things that take 250 hours of play time to even think about.

 

No, we're not doing no trader versions, we're filling the world with NPCs not removing them. Have some self control and don't use them, noone forces you to use them.

 

This is 7 Days to Die, not a simulation. That is what mods are for. Lets stay on topic and talk alpha 18 balance, not pimp dreams or mods.

[madmole]

My only real issue with that is that shotguns with buckshot are frequently used in home defense scenarios expressly because they won't over-penetrate walls like a 5.56 or 7.62 can. Yes, I know fun gameplay trumps realism, but the damage to containers from an accidental shot or near-miss is actually a problem.

 

Could it be lowered at least on the standard ammo so that a point-blank shot where one block gets all pellets will still shatter it, but a stray pellet from a middle-distance shot won't wreck the chest you're working towards? That would keep from having to switch ammo but still alleviate the issue.

What chests are you destroying? Most every good loot container has a decent amount of health, and all the boxes have a protective wooden shipping crate around them.

[madmole]

@jwagne51

 

True however, spec-ing into heavy armor does the same thing. It's a bit of a moot point. Heavy armor spec-ing shouldn't give more mobility but rather more protection. Being sneaky doesn't really work right now so that's a bit moot as well. Doesn't matter if you're wearing light or heavy. Zeds wake up the same and stay asleep the same regardless.

 

None of this is true.

[Vintorez]

I don't know where exactly the break point was, but I noticed that with Rank 5 Archery, 4 ranks of Run and Gun and with the Bandolier mod I'm able to fire a compound crossbow faster than the compound bow with non-charged shots. Not sure if you want the crossbow to be able to completely overtake the bow like this.

 

Edit: Went and retested this and found it was only true when going by the ammo counter. By spam clicking I'm able to occasionally get what I can only describe as double shots where the game is sorta fighting itself between the actual reload and drawing the bow. Not sure what could be done to make it smoother but the charge up bar does make it awkward to try to fire the bow at its fastest speed. It does give me the idea of a weapon mod that disables the charge up mechanic to facilitate faster firing, I believe charging up the shot only makes the arrow fly quicker but doesn't add damage, or at least it feels that way.

 

You also can't detonate landmines by shooting them with bows or crossbows, but they will be destroyed like a regular block when you shoot them with enough arrows.

[Drunknmunkey]

None of this is true.

 

The difference between Steel and Military @ skill lvl 5 and improved fittings

armor rating 16%

mobility 17.7%

Noise, not improved by specs: Military=50% Steel=100% only muffled fittings changes this so you're still 50% loud in light armor.

 

In my personal opinion these numbers are not a very good difference between light and heavy armor in the sense of choosing one over the other.