Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

[Laz Man]

I have been saying this but they don’t want to listen. They just blame the internet, ping, lag, etc. It’s much worse than any other game out there considering the internet and all those factors that affect all games.

 

Have you done testing with the hit detection thingy? I remember someone doing a video and hit detection seemed accurate to the cursor/target.

 

I think what was throwing people off was the the swing animation in relation to the center cursor/target.

[madmole]

Dont want to burst your bubble but range is definitely off. I never mess with FOV so that wouldnt apply in my case. Its even worse on servers but thats expected due to desync of course.

 

It feels as designed to me. One person's off is another's on. I play SP though, so no lag and no weird MP desync hits.

[Roland]

There's no way to make this not sound condescending so apologies in advance:

 

I have had to teach family members the outer range of being able to hit zombies and it is always further away than they thought it was. They were getting hit mainly because they would wait to swing until they were what they felt was close enough to hit but it was way closer than it needed to be and so they were often getting tagged by the zombie and feeling like combat was trading hits.

 

Maybe people (even experienced veterans) should do a double check and make sure they've found the actual max range they can stand and still hit a zombie with their weapon. It is definitely outside the range that they can hit back. Once learned you will almost never get hit when striking and this also applies to MP.

 

I know the inclination is to look at my post as trying to deflect blame from the coding and tell people to git gud but I seriously do believe that people are typically standing closer than they need to in order to strike their target. This was also the case back when falling trees could kill. I watched "proof videos" of the "problem" and in every case the player was practically humping the tree as they chopped instead of standing back from it.

 

Too bad it all resulted in falling trees no longer doing lethal damage. Would love to get that back so we could make them fall on approaching zombies again.

[SnowDog1942]

There's no way to make this not sound condescending so apologies in advance:

 

I have had to teach family members the outer range of being able to hit zombies and it is always further away than they thought it was. They were getting hit mainly because they would wait to swing until they were what they felt was close enough to hit but it was way closer than it needed to be and so they were often getting tagged by the zombie and feeling like combat was trading hits.

 

Maybe people (even experienced veterans) should do a double check and make sure they've found the actual max range they can stand and still hit a zombie with their weapon. It is definitely outside the range that they can hit back. Once learned you will almost never get hit when striking and this also applies to MP.

 

I know the inclination is to look at my post as trying to deflect blame from the coding and tell people to git gud but I seriously do believe that people are typically standing closer than they need to in order to strike their target. This was also the case back when falling trees could kill. I watched "proof videos" of the "problem" and in every case the player was practically humping the tree as they chopped instead of standing back from it.

 

Too bad it all resulted in falling trees no longer doing lethal damage. Would love to get that back so we could make them fall on approaching zombies again.

 

 

Please try playing as a client in peer to peer and then compare to playing as the host, it’s a world of difference. Much more difference than I experience in other games.

[Gazz]

Zombies still take damage from falling trees.

[Roland]

Please try playing as a client in peer to peer and then compare to playing as the host, it’s a world of difference. Much more difference than I experience in other games.

 

I believe you. I've played as the client on my brother's computer in P2P and I do get hit more often but then that is basically admitting that the blame is fairly placed...

 

They just blame the internet, ping, lag, etc.

 

I am rarely hit back when playing on a dedicated server with low ping and almost never hit back when playing SP. The only times I get hit are when I make a blunder on timing and/or range and it makes perfect sense to me why I got hit.

 

So if it is practically never in SP, rarely on a strongly connected dedicated, and then more often as a client in P2P, then why can't you accept that the culprit actually is latency?

[Aurelius]

With single player you can scoot in, hit, and step back out of their contact range. This becomes a muscle memory so you know just how far back you have to go to evade the hit.

 

When you switch to being a client in a P2P setting, this mechanism changes. It's really not about "my too far is your too close" - if you move the same distance as you would in a SP game, you'll get hit when you shouldn't.

 

It's pretty subtle, but you can notice it by playing strictly melee in SP mode and getting used to the evasion timing and distance, and then joining a P2P game as a client. If you start up the game as the host, you won't see any problems.

 

Please don't poo-poo this as being due to network lag, or not knowing where the optimal distance is for meleeing. It's an issue that's been around for ages, and it makes MP combat annoying.

 

So if it is practically never in SP, rarely on a strongly connected dedicated, and then more often as a client in P2P, then why can't you accept that the culprit actually is latency?

 

I can't speak to dedicated servers, but I will say that my ping is sub 30 when playing a P2P game. I doubt I'd get much better latency with a dedicated server.

 

Easy enough to test though - set up a P2P game on LAN, and you'll see the same problem surface.

 

-A

[Roland]

Zombies still take damage from falling trees.

 

But they don't die when hit and that is very anticlimactic. I'd say even a demolisher should get one hit killed from a felled tree....

[Roland]

With single player you can scoot in, hit, and step back out of their contact range. This becomes a muscle memory so you know just how far back you have to go to evade the hit.

 

When you switch to being a client in a P2P setting, this mechanism changes. It's really not about "my too far is your too close" - if you move the same distance as you would in a SP game, you'll get hit when you shouldn't.

 

It's pretty subtle, but you can notice it by playing strictly melee in SP mode and getting used to the evasion timing and distance, and then joining a P2P game as a client. If you start up the game as the host, you won't see any problems.

 

Please don't poo-poo this as being due to network lag, or not knowing where the optimal distance is for meleeing. It's an issue that's been around for ages, and it makes MP combat annoying.

 

-A

 

But network lag sounds exactly like the culprit from your own description. You have to adjust and get used to the latency in order to get close to what you can achieve in SP which has no latency. I'm not trying to poo poo the problem by saying it's lag--Im trying to identify the reason so it can hopefully be fixed.

 

But extending the range of our hits out even further or shrinking the range that zombies can hit even more is not going to fix the problem. It will just make SP easy button.

[madmole]

With single player you can scoot in, hit, and step back out of their contact range. This becomes a muscle memory so you know just how far back you have to go to evade the hit.

 

When you switch to being a client in a P2P setting, this mechanism changes. It's really not about "my too far is your too close" - if you move the same distance as you would in a SP game, you'll get hit when you shouldn't.

 

It's pretty subtle, but you can notice it by playing strictly melee in SP mode and getting used to the evasion timing and distance, and then joining a P2P game as a client. If you start up the game as the host, you won't see any problems.

 

Please don't poo-poo this as being due to network lag, or not knowing where the optimal distance is for meleeing. It's an issue that's been around for ages, and it makes MP combat annoying.

 

-A

 

If you stick to one poison I think its fairly consistent. I played on the dedi and once I got used to it I was fine with it. Its the initial switch from SP to MP that makes it feel weird, but if you exclusively play MP you get used to it and its acceptable IMO.

[dcsobral]

Ok, I'll retract what I said about it being a 18.1 to 18.2 issue. I just crafted an iron stack in a game that started on 18.2 b5, and gained almost 20k XP.

[SnowDog1942]

So if it is practically never in SP, rarely on a strongly connected dedicated, and then more often as a client in P2P, then why can't you accept that the culprit actually is latency?

 

I accept latency is part of it. I have no proof but only a feeling because hearing my friends complain while playing 7 days but none of the other games we play which I host. I can’t count the number of times my friend scream How the $&)$& did it hit me it’s 20 feet away!!! Yet on my screen the zombie was on top of him.

[Aurelius]

But network lag sounds exactly like the culprit from your own description.

 

Not at that low of numbers.

 

If it were latency, you'd see more complaints from people who play on dedicated servers where latency is much higher.

 

But it's clear you guys aren't going to listen, and consider it working as intended.

 

-A

[Laz Man]

Not at that low of numbers.

 

If it were latency, you'd see more complaints from people who play on dedicated servers where latency is much higher.

 

But it's clear you guys aren't going to listen, and consider it working as intended.

 

-A

 

If the problem doesnt exist in SP, what are the devs to do? Is there code out there that can compensate for latency? Seems like a moving target to me.

 

Does this problem happen with other unity fps games in MP? If not, what's different?

[madmole]

I accept latency is part of it. I have no proof but only a feeling because hearing my friends complain while playing 7 days but none of the other games we play which I host. I can’t count the number of times my friend scream How the $&)$& did it hit me it’s 20 feet away!!! Yet on my screen the zombie was on top of him.

 

Sounds like rubber banding or lag. The zombie was close, but to you its not it hits you because your not even trying to get away because its 20' away etc.

[faatal]

Dont want to burst your bubble but range is definitely off. I never mess with FOV so that wouldnt apply in my case. Its even worse on servers but thats expected due to desync of course.

 

Hit ranges are a bit generous, but it goes both ways, so at least it is probably fair. I'd like to see them get tighter in the future.

[dcsobral]

I don't remember the exact command, but it's in the list you get by entering help in the console.

 

I looked through it and couldn't find it. I learned about "showhits", which is interesting, but it's not that, and, of course, there's my old friend "showswings" which is nice to know how your weapon works, but also doesn't tell you if a zombie is within range or not.

[Roland]

I accept latency is part of it. I have no proof but only a feeling because hearing my friends complain while playing 7 days but none of the other games we play which I host. I can’t count the number of times my friend scream How the $&)$& did it hit me it’s 20 feet away!!! Yet on my screen the zombie was on top of him.

 

How do you explain this description Aurelius? Please. If Im biased against seeing the REAL reason then give me the straight answer for how the host sees the zombie on top of the client but the client sees the zombie 6 meters away and complains about getting hit.

[ZombieSurvivor]

There's no way to make this not sound condescending so apologies in advance:

 

I have had to teach family members the outer range of being able to hit zombies and it is always further away than they thought it was. They were getting hit mainly because they would wait to swing until they were what they felt was close enough to hit but it was way closer than it needed to be and so they were often getting tagged by the zombie and feeling like combat was trading hits.

 

Maybe people (even experienced veterans) should do a double check and make sure they've found the actual max range they can stand and still hit a zombie with their weapon. It is definitely outside the range that they can hit back. Once learned you will almost never get hit when striking and this also applies to MP.

 

I know the inclination is to look at my post as trying to deflect blame from the coding and tell people to git gud but I seriously do believe that people are typically standing closer than they need to in order to strike their target. This was also the case back when falling trees could kill. I watched "proof videos" of the "problem" and in every case the player was practically humping the tree as they chopped instead of standing back from it.

 

Too bad it all resulted in falling trees no longer doing lethal damage. Would love to get that back so we could make them fall on approaching zombies again.

 

[Blake_]

Hit ranges are a bit generous, but it goes both ways, so at least it is probably fair. I'd like to see them get tighter in the future.

 

It shouldn't be like that. The hit range of the Zds should be 1 block less than the player period.

 

Why? because they have glitchy punches, glitchy behaviour, glitchy and sudden movement and glitchy animations.

 

All of those are unavoidable on MP to some degree. But going for same distance will result in frustation for the player, even for veterans from time to time. AND by reducing Zd hit range you will fix the phantom punch of the crawlers to a slim chance. Win win.

[AtomicUs5000]

Trying to compensate for network lag is one of the hardest things to do in my opinion. Some things like projectiles can be handled relatively easy because all clients only need to know the trajectory and when it was launched in order to speed it up so it lands within milliseconds on all clients. Now try to do some kind of prediction code for zombies with such erratic movements and elements of randomness. When you have shooter arena games, prediction code is a little easier because every player is sending their movements to the server. Treating every zombie like a player and broadcasting their movements to every real player is not going to work. Too much information. I'm sure a lot of things have to be figured out on the clients from minimal information coming from the server. A little bit of information that comes in too slowly is going to cause some real "wonky" stuff as people are saying.

 

Developers spend a long, long time trying to get this to be good in their games.

[bloodmoth13]

I think guns are currently too easy to find and not enough time is spent at lower tiers.

As for lower tiers, could we get some t1 representation for some other weapon perks? like a musket to represent rifles and a flintlock pistol for pistols?

its fun having to make do with what you have available, especially when its substandard, and id love to spend a week with a belt of single shot flintlocks to pelt down a horde of zombies

[faatal]

It shouldn't be like that. The hit range of the Zds should be 1 block less than the player period.

 

Why? because they have glitchy punches, glitchy behaviour, glitchy and sudden movement and glitchy animations.

 

All of those are unavoidable on MP to some degree. But going for same distance will result in frustation for the player, even for veterans from time to time. AND by reducing Zd hit range you will fix the phantom punch of the crawlers to a slim chance. Win win.

 

It should be the range that a player's weapon reaches to. The contact point of the punch, should be the range. If a sledgehammer, then where the head of the hammer reaches to. A zombie should hit where their hand reaches to. Short arms shorter range. Long arms longer.

 

In SP it is pretty basic, since there is no latency other than the time to animate. In MP you have that plus latency, so it is not going to be perfect and yes the enemies could use a bit shorter distance than their visible attack length.

[SnowDog1942]

How do you explain this description Aurelius? Please. If Im biased against seeing the REAL reason then give me the straight answer for how the host sees the zombie on top of the client but the client sees the zombie 6 meters away and complains about getting hit.

 

Roland, if it is only Normal internet latency causing this, why do other games work fine that I host? Let’s take one example that we tested, The Forest. No noticeable latency for clients then we switch to 7 days and bam, zombies start hitting Clients from wacky distances when we were playing the forest fine 2 minutes earlier. Switch back to the forest and it’s all good again. I’m not making this up, we did this as a test, seriously.

 

Does my internet connection just happen to have higher latency while I’m playing 7 days? No, It’s not possible, it’s a very consistent pattern with 7 days and with other games.

 

Modding the reach of zombies helps a lot but it makes it too easy for the client. It’s too bad there can’t be 2 separate zombie reach settings, one for hosts and one for clients.

 

I know I won’t convince you or TFP there is something weird goin on but It’s nice to see that others have noticed this, like Aurelius.

 

Oh and , I’m not raging - A18 is freakin awesome! And I love you Roland!

[Roland]

Roland, if it is only Normal internet latency causing this, why do other games work fine that I host? Let’s take one example that we tested, The Forest. No noticeable latency for clients then we switch to 7 days and bam, zombies start hitting Clients from wacky distances when we were playing the forest fine 2 minutes earlier. Switch back to the forest and it’s all good again. I’m not making this up, we did this as a test, seriously.

 

Does my internet connection just happen to have higher latency while I’m playing 7 days? No, It’s not possible, it’s a very consistent pattern with 7 days and with other games.

 

Modding the reach of zombies helps a lot but it makes it too easy for the client. It’s too bad there can’t be 2 separate zombie reach settings, one for hosts and one for clients.

 

I know I won’t convince you or TFP there is something weird goin on but It’s nice to see that others have noticed this, like Aurelius.

 

Oh and , I’m not raging - A18 is freakin awesome! And I love you Roland!

 

I'm not raging either. I just think that the problem really is good old fashioned lag and nothing you've said in any of your descriptions has disabused me of my opinion. It just fits in every way. It's like you're telling me that you think you might be dehydrated and you want me to tell you how to fix it but I'm not allowed to use the words "water" or "drink" -- otherwise you'll be convinced I'm not taking the problem seriously and that I just want to put you off and end the conversation.